


The Intricacies of Atonement

by ReaperDuckling



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (oh my god they were roommates), Alien genitalia, Angst, Anxiety, Canon Divergent, Domestic Fluff, Everybody needs therapy, Happy Ending, Jealousy, Kallus is a war criminal, M/M, Mutual Pining, Zeb needs a break, and they were ROOMMATES, demisexual Kallus, gender non-conforming Kallus, the galactic empire are still around and they're STILL a bunch of nazis, the moving to lira san-fic that nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperDuckling/pseuds/ReaperDuckling
Summary: Garazeb is more than ready to give Alexsandr his all. Unfortunately, Alexsandr isn’t ready to receive it (no matter how much he wants it): first he needs to make amends. How do you even begin to repair the damage when you’ve participated in genocide? How do you even begin to deserve the love of someone who was a victim to it?
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios & Hera Syndulla
Comments: 112
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE SHOUTOUT to my wonderful beta's @falloutboiruto and @Kittyquark: I've already written most of this fanfic (14 out of 18 chapters are finished as I'm writing this), something that I never would have achieved without their never ending enthusiasm and support 
> 
> I'll be writing any and all appropriate trigger warnings in the notes at the beginning of each chapter. This is E-rated for a reason, and it's not just because of the future sex-scenes, so if you're sensitive to graphic descriptions of violence and decide to stick around with this fanfic anyway then I suggest that you pay attention to the warnings ^^ most of this story can be understood even if you're just here for the angst and the domestic fluff and decide to skip out of the gory parts :)

The years following the battle of Lothal are surprisingly quiet for the members of the rebellion that stay planetside. At first glance this might seem like a peaceful kind of existence, but what remains of the Ghost-crew walk around Ezra’s old homeplanet with the boy’s shadow hanging over their shoulders as they mourn their dead. 

Alexsandr Kallus watches as grief, especially in this new time of peace, takes its toll on all of them. 

Sabine spends months alone in her room with various star-maps, desperately trying to figure out Ezra’s location as the shadows beneath her eyes grow heavy and the colours in her hair washes out into the dull bleached white underneath. 

Chopper isn’t nearly as talkative or prone to electrocuting people as usual - which would be a relief, if it wasn’t so alien on the droid. 

Hera, in particular, seems to be experiencing difficulties moving on from her mourning, that is only worsened after she gives birth to the now deceased jedi’s child. For a while, she stops flying. Stops fighting. Stops doing anything, really, that’s not laying in her bed staring at the baby or crying. 

The medics diagnose her with postpartum depression and Zeb, that Alexsandr knows is having his own difficulties dealing with Kanan’s death and Ezra’s disappearance, pretty much glues himself to her side from that point on. The lasat is doing his best to keep her afloat, while Alexsandr… well, Alexsandr does the same for _him_ , truth be told. He stays close. Makes sure that Garazeb eats and drinks and sleeps semi-regularly. Tries his best not to feel _too_ out of place in the rebellion, or to entertain his own demons - there’s no place for them here, not now. 

And it’s all worth it, because sometimes, even after long days when Zeb’s been juggling defense-plans for Lothal and forcing Hera to take care of her own basic needs from dusk ‘til dawn with her baby on his shoulder, Alexsandr manage to coax a smile out of him. Even with all the riches in the galaxy, he can’t imagine a sweeter reward than that. 

As time goes by and it becomes increasingly obvious that they’re not under direct threat of revenge from the Empire, Garazeb’s smiles grow more genuine and frequent. Sabine finds her way out of her bedroom with her hair dyed purple and cut into a short pixie cut. Chopper (unfortunately) starts electrocuting people again. Even Hera gets better, stronger, happier, as she falls in love with her son and with flying all over again. All the while Alexsandr steps aside and feels more out of place than ever. 

Two years after the battle on Lothal the good days among the Ghost-crew outnumber the bad ones by far. Towards the end of a _really_ good one, one of those that doesn’t make Alexsandr feel like a sad outsider but a true, welcomed part of the crew, his demons finally make their ugly presence known. 

They begin the evening with the intentions of spending it playing sabacc, which quickly, predictably, spirals into loud discussions and general mayhem. Zeb accuses Sabine of cheating: Chopper zaps him. Sabine covertly reveals to Alexsandr that she _was_ cheating all along: Chopper zaps him as well. But just as Zeb, despite Hera’s very loud orders, is about to throw himself all over the pesky droid in retaliation, Jacen interrupts them. Somehow, he’s gotten his grubby little hands on Hera’s kalikori.

“Eerrr, Hera…?” Zeb asks, eyeing the toddler as he’s shoving the kalikori in his mouth violently. “Should he really be playing with that thing? What if it breaks?” 

“Oooh I’m sure it’s fine,” Hera wavs him off, though Alexsandr notices the hawkeye she keeps on the boy. “It will be his one day, after all. He’s just starting on his piece a little early.”  
“Using teeth marks and drool as artistic tools? I like it!” Sabine grins, before ruffling through the boy’s green curls. “So innovative... I wish Mandalorian culture was a little more decorative! Sometimes I feel like me and my dad are the only Mandalorians out there that’s interested in something more than just warfare and armor.” 

“Surely not _all_ Mandalorian culture is centered around violence,” Alexsandr says. “I seem to recall a rather recent period of peace in your history, after all. When you were led by the Duchess Satine? I’m sure that lots of creative innovations were made then.” 

“Weeeell, there _is_ the Keldabe kiss.” Sabine says with a look on her face that’s all trouble. 

“Ohohohoho, yeah! The Keldabe kiss!” Zeb laughs, and Alexsandr _should_ be a lot more worried about the way that the lasat’s pupils grow with excitement than he is. “Show him, Sabine! Show him!” 

“Do _not_ show him the Keldabe kiss, Sabine.” Hera threatens, though there’s not much heat to it. 

Chopper’s beeps while waving his little droid arms around excitedly. And yet, Alexsandr can’t keep himself from asking. 

“The Keldabe kiss?” 

“It goes a little like…” the Mandalorian picks her helmet up from the couch and puts it on. Then she comes over to where Alexsandr is sitting. Just as he’s beginning to grow uncomfortable with this new proximity, she nods her head forward and boops the helmet against his forehead, softly. “like that!” 

Sabine laughs and retreats back to her place on the couch, where she removes her helmet again. 

“Aaawww, man! You did that a lot harder when you showed it to me!” Zeb complains, making everyone snicker. 

“What about you, Kallus?” The girl fixes him with her sharp brown eyes. “Do you remember anything about your culture back on… wherever it is you come from, before you joined the empire?” 

“He’s Coruscanti.” Zeb interjects before Alexsandr’s had the chance to respond. Despite himself, he finds himself getting flustered. _He remembers._ Which, really, should be a small achievement after three years of threading the line between friendship and something more, but it’s not like Alexsandr talks about himself often, or like anyone else on the crew knew… 

“I-ugh,” Alexsandr clears his throat, trying to fight through the tightness in his chest. “I don’t actually remember much from Coruscant. I was enrolled in the Republic military academy as a child, which, as you already know, became the Empire’s after the clone wars.” They’re all looking at him with something resembling pity, which frustrates him into making an effort to recall _something_ at least. “But I… I think I remember my mother making me a special tea. Chandrilan tea, I believe it was called?” 

He sits back and focuses on the emotions that the memory brings back: the comfort of a ceramic cup in his hands, the warmth of the water, the spices against his tongue. It feels like safety. “I liked that tea.” 

“That’s wonderful, Kallus.” Hera reaches out to squeeze his arm in comfort. 

“Yeah! Yeah that sounds like-” Zeb agrees, just a tad bit too eager to be normal, before he catches himself in the act of it and gets flustered. He rubs a hand against his neck in that endearing way he does when he’s embarrassed. “sounds like… some great tea, ‘Sandr.” 

‘Sandr. Only Zeb ever calls him that, just like he’s the only one that insists on calling Zeb by his full name. As a matter of fact no one’s ever had a nickname for Alexsandr before. But when Zeb says it… something just feels _right._ Like the nostalgic memory of the tea, but fresh and warm and alive - like there’s someone out there in the galaxy that cares for and looks out for him. He can’t believe his own luck. What did he ever do to deserve all of this easy camaraderie and love? 

Alexsandr forces his attention back to Hera before the cheesy smile leaves a permanent mark on his face. 

“What other Twi’lek cultural practices do you enjoy, Hera? Except for the kalikori, of course.” 

“Well, there is the waker’s dance…” she says, which quickly, predictably, spirals into loud discussions and general mayhem as she attempts to teach everyone the moves of it. Alexsandr laughs himself hoarse watching Zeb’s clumsy attempt, until the lasat pulls him to the floor by the hand. 

“Alright, that’s enough!” The alien says with a gruffness in his voice that’s betrayed by the grin on his face. He looks down at Alexsandr, who just suddenly realizes how close they’re standing and takes a little flustered step back. When he looks back up Zeb is still gazing down on him, something dangerously soft in his big green eyes that make the breath catch in Alexsandr’s throat. “I want to teach _you_ guys something!” Zeb finally tears his eyes away from him and gives his attention to the rest of the gang. He’s still holding his hand though. “A lasat dance! I can’t really remember the name of it-” something _else_ tugs in Alexsandr’s chest, and he has enough experience with the emotion by now to realize that it’s guilt. “but I think I know most of the steps.” 

The Ghost-crew spends the next couple of hours attempting to recreate Zeb’s nameless lasat-dance together, moving the furniture aside so they have space for the wide movements and multiple, elaborate swings and somersaults that the lasat remembers. 

Despite the members of the crew's individual athletic abilities the dancing turns out like most things they attempt as a team: messy, loud and a lot of fun. As the hour grows late and the shadows dark around them, their movements slow. In the middle of the Ghost’s common room, with an upturned table and an abandoned game of saabac on the floor, Alexsandr Kallus and Garazeb Orrellius find each other in a soft embrace, drawn together like magnets to an opposing pole. 

One by one the other’s left the scene, Hera to put Jacen to bed, Sabine to give them some privacy, Chopper to do whatever it is that the droid does when he’s not terrorizing them. Though Alexsandr has noticed the other’s absence, he won’t mention it. He’s incredibly comfortable like this, swaying softly against Zeb’s chest to the rhythm of a song that the lasat is humming into his hair, and he’s afraid that mentioning their new solitude will rid them of their excuse to keep dancing. He’s struck by a sudden urge to feel the vibrations of Zeb’s voice, and before he knows it he’s moved his left hand from its place on the others’ hip and splayed it across his chest. The lasat stops humming, but Alexsandr can feel the way that his heart is beating against his palm, hard and fast like the wings of a bird. 

He’s feeling light headed and warm, drunk on nothing but Garazeb’s proximity. They keep dancing, now in silence. When Zeb finally clears his throat to speak, Alexsandr feels it like a rumble underneath his hand. 

“I just wanted to say-” the lasat stutters. He’s nervous, and the realization makes Alexsandr’s own heart beat a little bit harder, a little bit faster. Zeb takes a deep breath and tries again. “just wanted to thank ya’, for everything you’ve done for me these past two years. It’s been… rough. But it would have been a lot worse without you here to take care of me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” He squints down at him, giving Alexsandr, that’s suddenly struck by the realization that Zeb’s hooded eyes aren’t only green, but speckled with nuances of brown and gold, a shy grin. 

The words take a moment, in which they’re still dancing, still pressed close, still only have eyes for each other, for Alexsandr to process. 

“It’s the least I could have done.” He says finally, sluggish, and suddenly the light headedness turns disorienting and the warmth in his chest into a heavy, uncomfortable lump of dread. He thinks about Lasan, about Zeb spending the past two years grieving not only his friends but the entirety of his _people_ , about foods he’ll never taste again, a language he’ll never use and dances that haven't been performed in so long that he’s forgotten the names of them. Alexsandr diverts his eyes from Zeb’s gaze and presses his forehead against his chest, trying to breathe through his insecurities and regrets, that have no right burdening anyone else and especially not Zeb. Fortunately the lasat doesn’t seem to notice that there’s anything wrong with him. Yet. 

His leg is hurting. 

“Don’t sell yourself so short, mate. Between the war, the guys being… _gone_ , Chopper being a little shit, Sabine being a teenager and Hera struggling with Jacen I probably would’ve gone crazy without ya’. Though I-uuurgh, karabast, I guess-” Zeb takes a step back, leaving Alexsandr’s hand hanging in the air where it had been pressed against his heart. A souldeep cold seeps into the space where the others’ body was, making something in Alexsandr scream out to bridge the distance once more and hide against the comfort of him. Instead, he bites down on the urge and clenches his hands into tight fists, willing himself not to cry. This is all _wrong_ \- why would Garazeb be thanking him, of all people?! He who stood by and watched his people burn - he who, young and scared, dumb and naive, gave **The Order** that wiped them from the galaxy?! He should hate him. 

**He should hate him** , and yet here he is, looking at him with those big soft kind green brown gold eyes, saying: 

“I guess I did go a little crazy. For you.” 

Alexsandr freeze. Opens his mouth, but the words get stuck in his throat and suddenly he can’t speak, or think, or even breathe, so he looks down at his feet and tries to blink the tears out of his eyes without Zeb noticing. The lasat’s words register in him like through a thick fog. 

“I’m sorry, was that too cheesy? I just- it sounded better in my head and-karabast, are you crying?” 

“No,” Alexsandr cries, taking a step back when Zeb takes a step forward. “no it’s just- so fucking _unfair_ -” 

An uncomfortable silence stretches between them. Alexsandr tries to control his erratic breathing and Zeb lets his arms, that had been stretched out to comfort him, fall to his sides. 

“What is?” The lasat finally asks, soft but shaky. 

Fearful. 

Alexsandr’s heart is thundering in his head. Finally, after the tears have stopped falling and the panic has been exchanged with the kind of self-loathing that makes him feel sick instead of dying, he raises his face to meet Zeb’s eyes. 

“As much as I may ever want you, you will always be the symbol of the greatest mistake of my life.” 

Not _a_ symbol, but _the_ symbol, since the empire left no other lasat alive or free for them to share the burden. And Alexsandr feels absolutely rotten for reminding Zeb about this, for weighing him down with his own demons when the lasat isn’t done recovering from his own - but it’s the truth. No matter how much they love each other, and Alexsandr _does_ love him, he’s loved him desperately ever since they shared that time on the ice moon, he can never truly be who Zeb needs him to be. And even if, by some miracle, he manages to play pretend for the rest of their shared lives, he’ll never amount to someone that Zeb _deserves_ to be with. He’s hurt him too much for that. Rid him of too much: his home, his people, his family. 

“I didn’t realize that that’s what I am to you.” Garazeb finally says, something bitter seeping its way into his voice. His ears are pressed down flat against his head. “A mistake.” 

“Garazeb, no, I’m sorry, I-” 

“No, ‘Sandr, I get it.” He sighs, all the fight leaving his body at once. Alexsandr watches his gaze flicker around the room, seemingly aimlessly, but avoiding him. He looks sad, a bit lost and very, very tired. “ _I’m_ the one that should apologize! Everything’s been such a mess lately. I just… didn’t realize the rush before now. But I… I think it’s time that we go on a trip together. Just us.”

“I don’t see how that-”  
“Trust me.” Zeb looks at him, a tentative, sad little smile on his face that makes Alexsandr want to bridge the distance and kiss him even as it breaks his heart. He never wants to be the cause of Zeb’s pain again. He promises himself that he won't be.

“I trust you.” He finally responds, a bit breathless. “To the end of the galaxy and back.”  
“Good!” Garazeb laughs, all boisterous energy again, though Alexsandr can tell that it’s strained. “‘Cuz that’s where we’re going!” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The journey continues! Thanks to everyone that left comments and kudos on the first chapter, they mean the world to me! <33   
> I wasn't sure about the schedule at first, but I've decided to update this fic every sunday :)   
> Happy holidays to everyone celebrating, and here's to a better new year <33 I'll see you in 2021!

Alexsandr’s leg hurts. 

It never really healed after his injury on Bahryn, despite all of the medical expertise of the Imperial army and their scans that kept telling him that the bone is mended. It hurt the worst, the most frequently, when he was still with them. 

He’d used to lay awake through most of the nights there, feeling the blood pulse through the limb, hot and scathing, like a second, burning heartbeat. It was a dull, throbbing sort of pain that no anesthesia seemed to be able to remedy: the only thing that helped was the crystal he’d brought with him from the moon. Alexsandr would hold it in his hands until he fell asleep, dreaming about the snow and the cold and the solid, comforting pressure of Garazeb’s body snuggled up against his own. When he woke up it would be with the smell of the lasat in his nose, the warmth of him in his arms. And then the disorienting realization that he was alone - truly, soul crushingly alone, serving an Empire that does not care about him, together with people forged colder than the very ice on that frozen moon. His only source of solace, his only source of  _ warmth,  _ had been the crystal that Garazeb gave to him. 

It provided him with something he hadn’t had in a long time, something he’d been starving for, all of these years, without even knowing it. It gave him hope. 

Unfortunately, in Alexsandr’s haste to flee the Empire, he’d had to leave the crystal behind. 

Though his leg hasn’t been more than an occasional nuisance since he joined the rebellion, triggered by oncoming storms, anxiety and/or direct hits against the spot where the bone once broke, it’s hurting now, and he finds that he’s missing the stone something fierce. 

Alexsandr is standing on the landing ridge to the Ghost, watching the crew of the ship that he once spent so much time hunting say their goodbyes. It’s only when Hera catches his eyes and starts making her way up to him that he realizes, with a start, that he’s spent even longer working  _ with  _ them by now. 

“Don’t think you can get away that easy.” She smiles and pulls him into a hug. Slowly, Alexsandr relaxes into it and some of the pain in his leg dissipates. 

When she pulls back from him, there’s something very sad in her green eyes. They flicker to where Zeb is standing. He’s talking to Rex, Chopper, Ketsu and Sabine with one of his arms thrown leisurely around the mandalorian’s shoulders. The two young women are leaving too, to help Sabine’s family back on Mandalore. There’s a smile on Garazeb’s face.

“Take care of him for me, will you?” The twi’lek asks and suddenly eye-contact is too difficult. Alexsandr keeps his gaze on Zeb instead, studying the way he leans against his friend with such casual confidence and the too-wide-grin on his face. There’s a tenseness to his shoulders and an almost manic look in his eyes that not even this mock happiness can disguise; like he suspects that he’s looking at his friends for the last time and he’s trying to cement their faces to memory. Alexsandr wasn’t with them when they lost Kanan, but Garazeb has told him about how he waved them all off as they went to rescue Hera from governor Pryce. He imagines that this is how Zeb would have studied the jedi then, if he’d known that he was saying goodbye for the last time.

Something heavy and thick grows in his throat. In a way, this might very well be the second family that he steals from Zeb. 

“I’ll try.” 

A couple of hours later the two of them are on their way to wherever it is that Garazeb is taking him. They’re riding in the Ghost, using some mysterious hyperspace coordinates that were stored in the ship’s memory bank. He won’t say anything about their destination except that the trip is going to take them three standard days and that “You’ll like it, I promise!”, coupled with a big nervous grin. 

Alexsandr decides not to pry, but he’d be lying if he said that all the secrecy doesn’t bother him. They spend their days  _ not  _ talking about it: not their destination, or their feelings, or Alexsandr’s frankly embarrassing breakdown the other day. Time passes in a sort of slow blurr, with sabacc-games and Alexsandr cooking increasingly complicated, time consuming dishes to the sound of Garazeb strumming on a hallikset they found dusting away in the far back of the storage room. In the evenings they sit down with a holofilm together. This goes down in pretty much the same way every night: first they’ll argue about what to watch (Garazeb only ever wants to see those trashy romantic dramas that they keep mass-producing on Naboo, the ones that Alexsandr refuses to admit that he enjoys), before they ultimately settle on something hilariously bad and enjoy the following hours of blissful normalcy in each other’s company. Sometimes their hands will brush against each other as they reach for the popped lemus corn, and a small piece of the normalcy crumbles when Zeb pulls his hand back, as if electrocuted, and not-so-subtly increases the distance between them on the couch. 

They don’t talk about it. 

This illusion of normalcy shatters completely afterwards, because every night after they’ve both supposedly gone to bed, Alexsandr can hear Zeb talking to someone. Though he can’t tell what they’re saying or who he’s conversing with through the walls, he can tell that the lasat is stressed out. The human listens to him pace around the ship, voice drifting in and out like the tide as the lasat moves around, with dread rising in his chest long after Zeb’s finally settled down in the bunk next to Alexsandr’s own. 

They  **don’t** talk about it. 

Then, on the morning of the third day on this strange, blind ride through space, Alexsandr wakes up to sounds outside of his room. Just as he’s about to get out and inspect what’s up, Garazeb pokes his head in. 

“Hey, uh, sorry mate, did I wake ya’?” He looks really excited, with twitching ears and his pupils blown wide in his eyes.    
“Goodmorning.” Alexsandr answers dryly, raising an inquiring eyebrow at the lasat. “What’s going on?”    
“We’re here! We’re  _ finally  _ here - but uuuh, I’m gonna need you to stay in here for a minute while I prep’ some stuff. I’ll come get ya’ as soon as everything’s ready, okay? Maybe-” Zeb stops mid sentence, running his eyes down Alexsandr’s body as if he just noticed that he’s in nothing but his pyjama-pants. The lasat blushes, some of the fur ruffling conspicuously around his neck, before he diverts his eyes to the floor really quick. Alexsandr tries his damnedest not to blush right back, and fails spectacularly. He folds his arms across his chest for some modicum of decency. “maybe put some clothes on, in the meantime?” 

“Garazeb, what is going on?”    
“You’ll like it, I promise! Trust me! Just wait a few more minutes and I’ll be right back!” 

“I trust-” The lasat disappears behind the door, slamming it shut behind him in his excitement. “...you.” 

Alexsandr sits down on the bed with a heavy sigh. 

He takes a moment to rub the headache out of his temples. Things with him and Zeb have been weird since Alexsandr’s nervous breakdown, with all of these secrets and this new, horrible distance that seems to stretch for miles between them. He feels like the lasat is tip-toeing around him, like he’s scared that Alexsandr will break apart and cry if he so much as  _ touches  _ him - and Alexsandr  **hates** it. He doesn’t want anyone’s pity, and he definitely doesn’t want Garazeb’s pity. He wants Garazeb’s- 

it doesn’t matter what he wants from Garazeb. 

After what he did to his people, to his family, to  _ him _ , he’ll never deserve it. 

No, all Alexsandr can do now is to try and make amends. 

He’s already done much for the rebellion, but until the war is won, there’s always more work to do. He’s prepared to go even further, do even more, for Zeb. The difference is that there’s no war to win with him: thanks to Alexsandr, they already lost that one. 

And so he gets back to his feet, fighting through the pain that pulses through his head and his leg and his heart, and he gets dressed. 

Zeb returns to the room a few moments later, his smile a bit more natural now, but still as excited, as he pulls Alexsandr to him with a gentle tug to his hand. 

“Wha-”    
“It’s time.” Zeb spins him around, slow and steady, like they’re dancing again, and Alexsandr shivers when he feels the lasat’s breath hit the back of his neck. Then the hand holding his lets go to cover the humans eyes instead. 

“Garazeb…” 

“Come with me.” The lasat says, voice deeper and a lot more tender than Alexsandr’s heard it in a long time,  almost like a purr , before he places his free hand around the human’s shoulder and tugs him forward. 

_ For as long as you’ll let me.  _ He thinks, but the words stick in his throat. 

Instead he stumbles forward into the darkness, led by Garazeb’s hand on his shoulder and the solid, comforting pressure of Garazeb’s body behind him. This is the most they’ve been touching for a while, and Alexsandr feels almost drunk on it. He can’t believe how much he’s missed it, or how lonely he’s been feeling even though they’ve been existing in the same, close space for the past three days. 

_ I miss you.  _ He wants to say, but that doesn’t make any sense. 

Alexsandr lets himself be led, counting the steps and turns until he’s sure that they’re in the control room. That’s where they stop and for a moment they just stand there, quiet, breathing each other in. Garazeb’s hands are shaking, ever so slightly. 

Then, suddenly, the lasat release him, and Alexsandr instinctively opens his eyes to the brightness before them. 

“Welcome, ‘Sandr. To Lira San.” 

What’s before them is unlike anything that the human has ever seen. There, laying nestled into a cluster of stars in the middle of space so bright that it looks like the Coruscanti sky at dawn, is a planet.

Though the sight is breathtaking, Alexsandr’s head is spinning with questions about why Garazeb thought to take him  _ here  _ of all places, why he thinks that this will somehow  _ fix  _ him, until he turns around to ask and- 

there they are. 

The two lasat prisoners, Chava and Gron, that Alexsandr remembers chasing, so many years ago, and that the Ghost-crew stole back from the Empire. He remembers watching them go into the cluster of stars, remembers  _ celebrating  _ their inevitable demise - and yet here they are, alive and smiling at him as if they’re meeting up with an old friend. He never asked Garazeb what happened to them. He always just assumed that- 

Alexsandr takes a stumbling step back, but Zeb is there to support him. He gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, pulling him just a bit closer, and the human thinks that he might burst from all the pent up, conflicting feelings of joy and guilt, doubt and relief. He’s shocked, but when he looks up at Garazeb the lasat is smiling down at him, and he can’t help but smile right back. 

“Lira San? Is this…? It can’t be...” 

“The original, legendary homeworld of the lasats.” Zeb fills in for him, still smiling, still holding him close, and for the first time in what feels like  _ months  _ nothing hurts anymore. 

“Welcome home, you two.” The old lady, Chava, says from her spot in the doorway. Alexsandr looks to her, to Gron, to the other two lasats standing behind them that he doesn’t recognize - which means that there are MORE of them, hundreds, maybe  _ thousands  _ of lasat’s living in peace, unbeknownst to the Empire, on that beautiful planet outside of the window. He can’t seem to drink his fill of them, taking them in with his eyes like he’s scared that they’ll disappear like the ghosts he spent so many years thinking they were at any minute. 

Suddenly, he’s warm, like the crystal on the frozen moon that Garazeb plucked just for him. 

Suddenly, he feels hopeful again. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: when I first started planning this fic I thought that it was going to be a 5 chaptered domestic fluff-piece. And now we're here, with 18 chapters of angst and an entire SUBPLOT of flashback-chapters building up to and featuring the Genocide on Lasan (these are also going to be the most explicitly violent chapters, for obvious reasons... this particular one is fine, though!)   
> Anyway, I hope that you'll enjoy this little blast from Garazeb's and Kallus' respective pasts! :)

**12 years before the Genocide:**

It’s winter and snow covers every surface of the forest in a thick, cold blanket. The frozen, untouched landscape seems to dampen all sounds, giving the world an almost magical, awe-inspiring quality as it glistens in the bright Lasan sun. 

And then two lasat children, followed by a couple of anooba’s, come barreling through the landscape, shattering the illusion. The girl, that’s ten centimeters taller and older than her brother by a couple of minutes that she’ll never let him live down, is laughing, loud and bright. Meanwhile the anooba’s run in happy circles, creating a blur of snow all around them. 

The boy, that’s got snow shoved inside of his jacket by his sister and is currently feeling it stick and melt in the fur on his neck, chases after her, cursing and growling. 

“Llorna, ya’ stupid pile of bantha-shit!” He shouts, just a bit out of breath as he’s shoving branches aside, hunting her through the thick forest. “When I get’cha I’m gonna- gonna-!”    
“What are ya’ gonna do Zebby?” She teases, expertly navigating her way beneath branches and over hidden rocks and roots. “Are ya’ gonna beat me up? Or are ya’ gonna go crying to dad about it?”    
“I’m gonna turn ya’ into a snowsat, is what I’m gonna do!” 

The girl laughs, the sound of it ringing through the forest as bright as a bell, making Zeb growl with the kind of stubborn determination that’s unique to slighted ten year olds. Then, suddenly, Llorna stumbles over something and she falls headfirst into the snow. Shocked, both her twin and their anooba’s stop in the middle of their steps to stare at her. 

Then the shock turns into glee, and Garazeb walks up to where she’s laying, laughing loud and bright. He plops down next to where she’s still on the ground, unmoving, and squeezes a half-assed snowball down onto the back of her head. 

“You alive, sis?” He asks between the laughter. 

She doesn’t answer. 

The anooba’s approach them, carefully sniffing her limp body. One of them, the dark one named Arik, gives Garazeb a kiss on the cheek as it passes him. He uses one hand to pat her, while gathering snow in the other. But just as he’s starting to get a bit worried, Llorna rolls around and sits upright, gasping out a long, startled breath that makes both him and the anooba’s jump. 

“WOAAHHHHH!” She exclaims, looking at him with wide, green eyes and big, blown out pupils. “I think I just passed out?!”    
Garazeb can’t help it, there’s just something about the way she’s looking in that moment, her ears perked up and covered head to toe in snow, that makes the boy throw his head back and laugh.    
“Zeb, ya’ dummy!” Llorna growls, and then she’s leaped over him, pressing his smaller body into the ground. She starts pushing more snow into his clothes, but Garazeb can’t stop laughing, and soon she’s laughing too. “Yer such a wimp, Zebby.” She tease. 

“Just wait ‘til I hit my growth spurt,” he says, reaching his tongue out at her. “then you’ll never be able to wrestle me down again. I’ll be the tallest, strongest lasat anyone’s ever seen!” 

“Riiiiight,” she rolls her eyes at him, giving him the perfect opportunity to shove a handful of snow up in her face. Llorna spits it out, then gets off of him to pet one of the anooba’s. “And then what are ya’ gonna do?” 

“I’m gonna become an honor guard! Just like mom was.” He sits up and grins at her. “And then I’ll protect the Queen until the day I die!” 

“So what? You’re just gonna sacrifice yer life for someone else?” She scoffs. “That’s  _ stupid _ . Don’t be stupid, Zeb.” 

“ _ You’re _ stupid!” Garazeb counters, intelligently, and then the chase is back on. The boy hunts her across the sparkling white landscape, over sticks and stones and tiny, frozen streams, through curtains of clinging branches and clouds of snow, all while the sound of their laughter and the barking anooba’s echoes around the forest. 

All of his life, Zeb has followed in his sister’s footsteps, looking to her for (sometimes questionable) guidance. After all, they came into the world together, and they’ve been together ever since, so sharing it seems only natural. Ten years young, feeling immortal and happy, Garazeb Orrelios can’t imagine a future that doesn’t have him by the side of his sister, until the very end. 

Unfortunately for Zeb, Llorna, true to older sibling fashion, always did love to prove him wrong. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Meanwhile, at the very heart of the galaxy, another young boy takes his first step into the Republic Military Academy on Coruscant. 

He’s hiding a stuffed wookie-doll behind his back, feeling silly and childish about the toy as he sees the other cadets. They all seem so grown up and competent compared to him. Slowly, his hand slips out of his mother's grip, but just as he’s beginning to tear up at the prospect of her absence, her hand is replaced by his brothers’. 

Sebastien, who's grown tall since Alexsandr last saw him, four years ago, gives him a kind smile before he reaches out and takes the doll from his brothers. A flash of fear surges through Alexsandr, but Sebastien doesn’t throw the toy away. Instead he tucks it underneath his arm. 

“I’ll carry it for you, if you don’t mind.” He says, and there’s nothing but kindness in his warm brown eyes. 

“Alright…” Alexsandr mumbles. 

Their mother gives them one last hug each before she disappears, out of the facility and more or less out of their lives forever. Alexsandr forces himself not to stare after her, instead turning his somber gaze to his older brother.    
“Show me to my room.” 

Sebastien obliges him, picking Alexsandr’s bag up from the floor before leading the way through the winding halls and corridors of the academy. Every now and then, some other cadet will stop them in the halls to talk. Apparently, Sebastien is pretty popular around here. 

“Cute doll, Kallus.” One of them teases, nodding towards the wookie-plush. Alexsandr prepares to say something mean back, but Sebastien only laughs and pulls his brother along.    
“I know, right?” He smiles, as bright and warm as the sun. “My mom just dropped it off for me.” Alexsandr can only stare at him. He’s never seen anyone deflect a conflict by being  _ nice  _ before. 

After walking for what feels like hours, but logistically couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, Sebastien finally drops him off at a room with three bunk beds and five other ten year olds. To his relief, he’s not the only one that’s brought a toy with him. The dark skinned girl, Alyssa, has an anooba-plushie thrown onto the covers of her bed, and the blonde boy, Dameon, has a whole set of jedi-figurines arranged haphazardly around the pile of his stuff. Taric, a tall, tan boy with short brown hair and a shiteating grin, has brought with him a small army of clone-figurines that they’ve arranged to fight the jedis. The only kids without toys are Chell, a quiet, turquoise skinned rodian boy that sleeps in the bunk above his, and Neo, a short little dark haired girl with intelligent, brown eyes and a Luminara-poster put up above her bunk bed. Even though Alexsandr is too shy to really talk much, they seem nice. 

That night, when Alexsandr is on the verge of crying himself to sleep, longing for his home and his bed and his mom, the rodian climbs down from his bunk to hold his hands. He holds on to him until Alexsandr’s stopped crying, and then they fall asleep together, two young boys huddled around a wookie-doll. 

Three years later, after the Jedi order has fallen and the Republic army has become the Imperial one, not much has changed for the academy students. They’re still stationed at the military facility on Coruscant, still living together in the same bedroom and still training to become soldiers. But some things are missing. There are no longer any Jedi figurines spread around Dameon’s things, no Luminara-poster over Neo’s bed or clone-figurines put in orderly lines by the foot of Taric’s bunk. But most importantly, Chell is no longer sleeping in the bed above Alexsandr’s. 

Even though they haven’t heard from the rodian since he disappeared, they’ve been told not to worry about their missing friend. 

“He’s in a place that’s more befitting of his skillset now.” They’d said, and Alexsandr supposes that that makes sense: they  _ are  _ at an age where some of them will be sent to specialized training academies, after all. Chell is probably just too busy to contact them. 

There’s no reason for him to doubt the Empire - as a matter of fact, he’s a bit jealous of Chell. Though Alexsandr will never be as socially adept as his brother, that’s about to finish his training and become a stormtrooper, he works harder than anyone else on the base, excelling in every class. He’s been the designated squadron leader of his grade for some time now, and the teachers at the academy keep singing his praises, telling him that if he keeps it up, he’ll be going through training to become a captain soon. 

Captain Alexsandr Kallus… he likes the sound of that. 

Maybe once he’s captain, he’ll pull some strings and find Chell again, wherever he is. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to credit Becky Chambers, and her book "Record of a Spaceborn Few" especially, for inspiring the world-building of my Lira San. If you're looking for some great, LGBTQ+ and poc-driven science science fiction books then I can't recommend her work enough!
> 
> Also: my beta Kittyquark once said that my lasat OC Andain Royot makes her imagine Idris Elba as a lasat and I think about that a lot

Walking across Lira San’s soil makes Alexsandr feel like he’s entered some crazy fever-dream where, suddenly, anything and everything is possible. 

He watches the dust rise and fall around his feet, watches the golden fields that stretch all around them and the small pink flowers that emerge from it. He counts seven suns in the strange, rosegold sky. It’s warm, but not nearly as warm as he’d imagined. A sudden, cold breeze runs past and Alexsandr smiles as he feels it play through his hair. It’s getting long. He might just let it grow even longer. 

“So?” Zeb says, stepping up to stand besides him. “What do you think?” 

“I’m… honestly still struggling a bit. Y’know, with the whole ‘I can’t believe this is real’-part.”   
“Well, after all those years with the Empire, I can’t say that I blame ya’. They’d never want anyone to know that it’s a lot more difficult to wipe out a species than they make it appear. Did anyone ever tell ya’ that we found a geonosian with a Queen-egg the last time we were on their planet?”   
“I- no. I didn’t know that.”   
“Ya’ see?” Garazeb grins, big and infectious enough for Alexsandr to mirror it. “The Empire is in way over their heads if they think they can just come in and destroy anything and anyone that doesn’t obey them!”   
“You’re living proof of that, aren’t you?” The words slip out of Alexsandr, breathy and dangerously soft. 

Zeb smiles back at him, just as gentle. 

“You and me both, mate.” 

They stand in silence for a while, studying the fields around them until another cool gust of wind rushes past, making Alexsandr shiver. 

“It’s colder here than I would have imagined.” 

The lasat huffs out a laugh, and Alexsandr angles his face towards him with an answering smile. 

“You know, because of all the nearby stars? Come to think of it… how come your species evolved with so much _fur_ on a planet like this?! What’s the evolutionary advantage to that?” 

“Hey! We can’t all be naked like some… some-!”   
“Some…?” Alexsandr teases. 

“Mole-rat.” 

“Mole-rat?!”   
“You heard me. You humans are as naked as those weird, ugly little mole-rats - now what’s the evolutionary advantage to _that_ , ‘Sandr?” 

“I-” he tries to come up with a rational response, but this entire situation is so absurd that the words stick in his throat and suddenly he’s laughing instead, loud and free and completely uninhibited. He laughs until his stomach hurts and tears begin to well in his eyes. He laughs until even Garazeb is looking a little worried about him. 

“Hey, mate, I know that I’m hilarious and all but uuugh, it wasn’t _that_ funny…” He chuckles, and Alexsandr can’t _believe_ how in love with him he is. The thought knocks the last of the wind out of him, and his laughter comes to an abrupt stop. 

The warm colours of the horizon behind Garazeb paint him in a soft glow, making Alexsandr feel like he’s seeing him, _really_ seeing him, for the first time. He’s smiling, just a little bit sheepish, his green eyes shining in the warm, dreamlike light of Lira San’s surface. Alexsandr imagines walking out into the fields around them to pick and bind a whole crown of those strange, pink flowers for Zeb to wear, imagines placing them on his head, imagines burying his hands into the soft fur on the back of his neck and tugging him down for a kiss. 

Right here, right now, with the light softening the lasat’s features and his gaze flickering between Alexsandr’s eyes and his mouth until he looks almost breathless with it, it feels almost possible. 

_I guess I did go a little crazy. For you._

The human takes a small, almost imperceptible step towards Garazeb. The lasat doesn’t move, seemingly frozen in place, but Alexsandr recognizes the blush on his cheeks, the slow growth of his pupils and the way he’s holding his breath for what it is: he’s holding himself back. It really does feel like a dream, reaching out like this. Alexsandr places a hand, gently, on the side of Zeb’s neck, allowing his finger to draw some aimless circles down it. Slowly, the lasat release the breath he’d been holding in a souldeep sigh and his hand takes a tentative hold of the edge of the human’s shirt. As he closes his eyes Alexsandr dares draw closer, until he can feel Garazeb’s exhalation like a tingle upon his lips. 

He wonders what it would feel like to kiss him. He wonders if he’s still as crazy about him as Alexsandr is in love with him. 

“Garazeb Orrelios!” The booming voice of a stranger says, and Alexsandr pretty much throws himself off of Zeb.

There’s a lasat coming towards them from the direction of the Ghost, wading through the golden fields around him with a bright smile on his face. Alexsandr doesn’t recognize him from before. 

Still feeling more than a little bit flustered, the human let his eyes flicker to Garazeb. The lasat appears to be shocked and maybe a tiny bit disappointed (?), but then a spark of recognition ignites in his eyes and a smile, as bright as the strangers, grow on his face. 

“Karabast, is that you Andain?!” He yells back and begin to move towards the other man. 

Alexsandr can only watch as they reach and embrace each other in a tight bearhug, still smiling like a couple of lovers long lost friends. 

“By Ashla, it’s _so_ good to finally meet you in person, min anü.” The stranger says, before he pulls back a fraction. Alexsandr sees the breath leave him for a moment, and he doesn’t like that look on his face _at all_. Then he places his right fist in the palm of his left hand and bow his head to Garazeb in respect. The other lasat mirrors the gesture. They’re standing so close together that their foreheads are almost touching; Alexsandr tries not to let the jealousy burn a pit right through his stomach. 

“You too.” Garazeb says and pulls back. “Now, ya’ gotta meet ‘Sandr!”   
“Ah yes, of course, your human friend! And our very own guest of honor!” The stranger turns to him, and Alexsandr feels himself straighten a bit where he stands. 

As the two lasat’s move towards him, talking in lasan, he takes a moment to study this so-called _Andain_ . He’s never seen a lasat with such dark colouring before: his skin is dark brown, almost black, and covered in defined, lavender stripes. He’s got big, well-trimmed and frustratingly good-looking facial hair (not a strand out of place), long black hair tied back in a bun on his head and a pair of yellow, intelligent eyes that seem to pierce right through you. As he comes closer Alexsandr realizes that he’s _just_ taller than him - a fact that only manages to rub salt into an already sore wound. 

“It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, ‘Sandr.” The lasat says and bows his head down in the same symbol of respect as the one he’d given Garazeb earlier. “I’m ambassador Andain Royot, here to welcome you to our beautiful planet.” 

“Kallus.” Alexsandr corrects in response, not quite able to keep the chill out of his voice even as he’s mirroring the gesture. “My name is Alexsandr Kallus. Only Garazeb calls me ‘Sandr.” 

“My apologies, Alexsandr.” The lasat smiles, and Alexsandr hates how effortless it comes to him, hates how the grin only amplifies his perfectly chiseled face and how perfectly white his teeth are. Then Royot turns back to Garazeb, who’s looking slightly mystified (disappointed?) by Alexsandr’s behavior, and resumes their previous conversation in lasan. The human feels a bit guilty, until realization strikes him like lightning. He’s heard this voice before! Back on the Ghost, every night as he lay awake in his bed, listening to Zeb moving around the ship… this is who the lasat was talking to! 

Alexsandr _almost_ says something, but decides to bite down on the words at the very last second.

Garazeb doesn’t know that he heard him, after all, and anyway, what would he even say? It’s not like he’s in a position to demand Zeb to stop talking to stupidly tall, stupidly handsome lasat men, or to know the content of their conversations. 

So instead of speaking up, Alexsandr allows the ambassador to lead them through the field, back towards their ship. He watches Royot place a hand, casually, like it belongs there, on the spot of skin on Garazeb’s neck where he’d drawn circles only moments before; listens to them talk in a language that he doesn’t understand; and tries not to throttle the man. Zeb would _hate_ that. 

Besides, he should be happy for him. Garazeb finally gets to spend time with others of his own species, he’s been given the opportunity to rediscover his own culture and speak in his own native language again - something that neither of them could have even dreamt of after the slaughter on Lasan. 

Alexsandr draws a deep, calming breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He looks around them, marveling quietly at the beauty of the place all over again, and thinks to the almost kiss they just shared. Slowly, happiness wraps itself around him. 

“About your accommodations,” Royot interrupts his otherwise happy, peaceful state of mind, annoying him all over again. Still, he turns to the man with a forced smile. For being a former spy, he’s never been good at faking pleasantries. “I talked to Zeb about it on your way here, and I’ve made sure to provide you with a house in the countryside for now. I assure you that it’s only temporary, until you’ve been more acclimated to life here on Lira San and you can acquire your own residencies wherever you like. I hope you don’t mind sharing your space for a little while. You…” here, he turns back to Garazeb, looking almost shy. “You wanted two bedrooms, right?” 

A small shock runs through Alexsandr’s body, thinking about the implications. He imagines going to bed with Garazeb, snuggling up with him beneath the covers every night, sleeping with him, waking up with him curled around his body in the mornings- 

“Yeah.” Zeb says, tone light and breezy, like he’s never even considered the options. After everything that’s happened between them, and with the strange way he’d acted on the ride here… Alexsandr supposes that it’s only rational. Maybe he’s not as interested in him as he thought that he was? Maybe he’s already moved on. “Two bedrooms will be great.” 

But then another thought strikes him. 

"Wait," he says, reaching out and pulling Garazeb aside. "for how long have you been preparing this? For _us_ moving to Lira San together?" 

"It's, uuuhh," he replies, looking flustered. "it's been a while now. But I- I mean ya’ don’t actually have to live here unless you want to, you’re obviously free to leave whenever ya’ like, and if you’re not okay with sharing a house then I’ll just talk to Andain and-"

“No, Garazeb. It’s perfect.” Alexsandr smiles, hope surging through his veins like a high he never wants to get down from. He still can’t believe that Lira San is real, or that the people here are happy to see him, or that Zeb wants to stay and live here together with him. Even with Andain’s pesky presence, it’s all so _perfect_ , it feels like the makings of a fever dream, a delirious fantasy of all of his fondest, most impossible wishes and he’s… **_he’s-_ **

completely undeserving. 

Garazeb’s family is still dead, because of him. His home planet is still in ruins, because of him. 

Suddenly, the hope in his vein turns into the worst kind of adrenaline: the kind without an outlet that makes his heart thunder so loud that he feels like he’s drowning in the sound of it. Alexsandr takes a long, shivering breath, and then Zeb’s hand is there, anchoring him with a grip around his own. 

“‘Sandr? Are you okay, mate?” He asks, while his big kind beautiful green eyes search for him. It takes all of the human’s strength to meet them. He gives Zeb a small smile, despite the anxiety making his hands shake. 

“You’re just so _good_ , Garazeb.” Alexsandr says, trying not to let the pain it causes him show. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The first few days on Lira San pass as if Alexsandr is stuck behind a veil. 

Ambassador Royot shows them to their house on that first day: a small cottage with the aforementioned two bedrooms, tall ceilings and a balcony overlooking the ocean. The second Alexsandr sets foot inside his bedroom, that’s small and dark with thick, blackout curtains, exhaustion hits him. He falls into bed and sleeps for a good seventeen hours, but even after that he feels as if he could sleep for another seventeen. 

The human is so shocked about the existence of not only a few refugees, but an entire _planet_ full of lasat’s who’s never even been touched by the war, that he barely registers anything happening around them. For a man like Alexsandr Kallus, who usually prides himself in being sharp and attentive, it’s absolutely maddening at first. 

Despite being miles away from their closest neighbours, Garazeb seems to be busy with others at all times of the day. He’s constantly on the holotransmitter, talking with important looking lasats until he appears to be absolutely sick with it, while Alexsandr tries to stay out of their way. It’s kind of lonely, until Chava comes walking down the gravel path to their house one day. The human can’t even begin to imagine how long she must have walked to reach them, and he’s more than a little puzzled over the way that she seems happy with just keeping him company while Zeb is busy with the administrative work of their stay. She brings them food and a collection of other basic necessities, but when Alexsandr tries to pay her she refuses. 

“On Lira San, we do not pay for a place to live, food to eat or water to drink. They are basic rights for any and all living beings.”  
“So what? You don’t use credits here at all?” 

“We do, for everything else. If you want something other than basic necessities, like, for example, to treat your big handsome boyfriend to a fancy dinner,”   
“He’s not my boyfriend.” 

“then you’ll have to pay credits for it. Or barter for it, with whatever goods or services you have to offer.” 

Apparently, they weren’t supposed to come here until after the war is over (if it ever ends), which is why they’ve been hidden away like this in the middle of nowhere. 

Apparently, not everyone is as happy about a human (and an ex-Imperial involved with the genocide on Lasan at that), moving to Lira San as ambassador Andain Royot keeps insisting.

Garazeb tells him all of this on the third evening, just as the red light of the setting suns is painting the ocean a deep shade of blackberry purple. Alexsandr is watching the seabirds as they sail past, huddled up in a blanket that Zeb brought out for him. The gesture of it warms just as much as the fabric, distracting him from the gloom of Garazeb’s words. 

“It’s cold out here,” the lasan had grumbled, dropping the quilt over his head. Then he’d sat down in the chair next to Alexsandr’s own on the balcony, placing the hallikset on the ground between them. “Speaking of which! I asked Andain about it and apparently the planet is chilly because it’s almost entirely covered by these really deep, really cold oceans. I think he said something about… karabast, what was it, something about the torrents? That and we’re pretty far north, close to the pole. Sorry, I’m butchering this geography lesson for ya'..." 

“Thank you, Garazeb. For remembering.” Alexsandr had smiled, snuggling deeper into his blanket. It’s a bit coarse, but pleasant, and even now, it smells vaguely like Zeb. Ezra was crazy, there’s nothing in the galaxy that’s as lovely as Zeb’s scent: warm and strong like really good coffee in the mornings. 

Alexsandr turns back to the ocean, tasting the salt of it on his tongue and thinking about how even here, in the middle of a starcluster where no life should be able to form, much less evolve, it’s not only flourished but become strangely _familiar._ Maybe he should have paid more attention in biology-class, then he might have been able to explain how every planet in the galaxy seems to be operating from the same set of rules, producing landscapes and creatures that are so strangely alike. 

Then he glances over to the lasat and thinks about how even here, even now, nothing feels entirely real to Alexsandr. The few times he’s managed to break through this dreamlike bubble have been when he’s training and the adrenaline makes his senses sharp, or when the pain in his leg makes itself known. 

This might also have something do with the fact that he hasn’t been able to sleep since their first night here. 

Since the planet is encircled by stars on all sides, the nights are short and almost as bright as the days. Like in some bizarre opposite of traveling through space, the closest they get to proper blackness on Lira San is a couple of hours of semi-darkness every night. During this time the light becomes a dark red instead of the usual rosegold of the day, as most of the suns are setting while the other ones are rising. 

Even with those thick, blackout curtains in Alexsandr’s room, the near constant brightness outside is making him feel disoriented - like he’s stepped outside of the usual flow of time and is now watching the stream of it trickle away next to him. 

He wonders if he’ll ever break out of this bubble, or if he’ll simply get used to it. As Garazeb picks up the hallikset and starts playing, soft tunes drifting in the wind to the sound of the waves, he wonders if he’ll ever want to. After all, staying like this, close but not close enough to be touching, conversing but not enough to be communicating, is safe, comfortable even. In the end, Alexsandr is more than content to just stay by Zeb’s side, wherever that takes him. 

And then the letter arrives. 

On the morning following that third night, Alexsandr’s bubble finally burst to the sound of a loud crash from the living room. As he hurries down the stairs, bo-rifle at the ready, he’s met by the sight of broken glass from the window, as well as a rock wrapped in paper on the middle of the floor. 

Heart hammering in his chest, he approaches the rock while taking surveillance of his immediate surroundings. Whoever threw the rock appears to have made their escape. Then Garazeb comes barraging down the stairs, looking disheveled but wide awake in nothing but his underwear and a housecoat. 

“‘Sandr?!”   
“Don’t come down here.” Alexsandr warns, before picking up the rock. “You’ll hurt your feet on the glass.” At least _he’d_ had the sense to wear slippers. 

Garazeb scoffs and, stubborn as a kaadu, makes his way down to the human. 

“Please, have ya’ _ever_ seen me wear shoes? We lasat’s are made of sturdier stuff than that, mate.” 

The scowl on his face only grows deeper as he looks at the paper-wrapped rock. 

“I don’t think ya’ should-” 

But Alexsandr is already unwrapping it. Before Zeb’s had the chance to take it from him, he places the rock in his empty hands and unfolds the note. 

There’s only one word on it, written in big, angry letters in basic, not lasan, spread across the page. 

“Karabast… ‘Sandr-” 

But Alexsandr isn’t listening. He’s staring, as transfixed, at the word glaring at him from the page, and suddenly this near-perfect, lonely but peaceful dream that he’s been living in for the past few days is a nightmare. 

**Murderer**

the note says. 

Someone out there, on Lira San, knows that he’s here, and that Alexsandr is a murderer.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to start out by saying THANK YOU for all of your lovely comments on the last chapter. It really means the world to me to know that you're all enjoying the this fic so far <3 
> 
> After some consideration, I've updated the estimated chapter count from 18 chapters to 19. I hope you guys don't mind some extra content ;)

Alexsandr is staring, as transfixed, at the contents of his closet. 

He’s had a bit of a rough start to the day, beginning with his raging insomnia that was so rudely interrupted by the arrival of The Letter. 

Alexsandr had only gone back up to his room to escape the sound of Garazeb shouting at those important looking government types over the holotransmitter. Desperate to distract himself, he’d decided to (finally) unpack his things, starting with the clothes that he’s left in a disorganized pile at the bottom of his trunk, and made to put them in the closet. Only to be met by this, ominous, frankly somewhat absurd scene. 

There’s  _ blouses  _ in his closet. And skirts. And dresses! They’re lined up all neat for him, to use at his leisure, probably arranged there by some poor lasat who’s clueless about human customs regarding gender expressions (likely) or by some incorrigible prankster who knew  _ exactly  _ what they were doing (less likely - this is Lira San, after all, not the Ghost). 

He gives himself a moment to look them over, admiring the fine craftsmanship and the gentle colours of the flowing, soft-looking fabrics. But just as his hands are beginning to itch with the urge to touch, he closes the door and drops his pile of (masculine! manly!) clothes on the floor. 

Usually he’d go crazy with the mess he’s made, but he’s just… so  **tired** , he can’t seem to find the will to keep things neat the way he usually does. Besides, what’s the point? It’s not like general Dodonna or senator Mon Mothma are going to pop in for a surprise room-inspection - apparently he’s a civilian now, so he can do whatever he likes! 

Ignoring the sudden stiffness of his bad leg, he shuffles past the pile and headfirst into bed, thinking that his current exhaustion might help him fall into some semblance of actual, restful sleep. It doesn’t. After turning this way and that for about an hour, body exhausted but mind wide awake with the sound of bo-rifles, almost-kisses and  **Murderer** , Alexsandr gets back up and makes for the training room. 

Downstairs, Chava greets him by the foot of the stairs. The old lady seems concerned, sweeping glass from the floor with a bunch of questions in her eyes that Alexsandr is too exhausted to answer right now. Since he wasn’t raised by loth-wolves (he’s sleep-deprived, not a savage) he gives her a brief thank you and then continues on, passing the office where Garazeb is. He’s still in a call, still sounding pissed, but he’s lowered his voice into something a lot more sensible than before, and as the human tries to sneak past the entrance, he actually notices. 

Alexsandr freezes and, for a moment, all the words seem to leave the lasat at once. He’s looking tired and lost, staring right through the hologram’s of the government types he’s been talking to into Alexsandr’s eyes, like he’s the only one important enough to actually listen to. 

Zeb’s lips move into a soundless ‘hey’ and, suddenly, the human’s face is on fire. He stumbles away from there, heart beating like crazy as he makes towards the training room. He just needs to get all of these pent up frustrations out him, is all. He just needs to  **hurt** something! 

The next few days pass in pretty much the same fashion: with Garazeb talking to strangers on the holotransmitter  instead of him , and Alexsandr taking out his frustrations with the galaxy on the training dummy. 

If it wasn’t for Chava dropping in everyday to feed them (a drop of colour in an otherwise dreary existence) they’d probably forget to eat all together. Though their conversations still feel somewhat forced and awkward, Alexsandr and Chava find a common interest as he helps her prepare their lunches every day. They talk about food, about the culinary practices of Lira San and about restaurants he might want to visit once him and Garazeb are out of quarantine, up until the inevitable point where their silences stretch too long for Alexsandr’s comfort and he'll go pummel the training dummy until she leaves. 

The human still can’t sleep for more than half an hour at a time, lying awake in the night waiting for the sound of broken glass while his leg aches and aches and aches. Turns out that he shouldn’t have bothered though, because the next message is soundlessly delivered in the form of graffiti against their house wall. 

**Murderer**

it says, in that same, angry lettering as the previous one, and Alexsandr would have scoffed at their lack of creativity if the message didn’t cause Garazeb such obvious anguish. 

They use soap sponges to wipe it off, side by side beneath the rising Lira San suns. Alexsandr put all of his energy into scrubbing the words off of their facade, willing himself not to think about the content of Garazeb’s nervous mumbling or the dark, heavy bags underneath his eyes. 

“They say they’re working on it.”    
“Hm.”    
“There’s not a lot of people that know we’re here, so the list of suspects is pretty slim.” 

“Mhm.”

“This should be over any day now.”    
“Any day now.” 

Alexsandr probably would have forgotten about the content of his closet all together if the frequency of Garazeb’s calls didn’t dwindle and the lasat, faced before an unprecedented amount of spare time, finds his way into the ocean. Suddenly, Zeb spends all of his afternoon’s swimming, and Alexsandr spends all of his watching him from the balcony. 

Every now and then Zeb will disappear underneath the surface for what feels like ages. Turns out that lasat’s can hold their breath for minutes at a time, but even though the logical part of Alexsandr’s brain  _ knows  _ that, there’s another, louder part of him that fills with the same, cold dread every time. Waiting for Garazeb to resurface makes him feel like  _ he’s  _ the one choking for air, from the moment he disappears from view until the moment he appears again, and they can both breathe. 

Whenever Garazeb finally makes his way back towards their house, Alexsandr opens up his closet, pointedly ignoring the feminine clothing before him (and the urge to touch them, pull them out, try them on) to grab a towel.    
“Why don’t you join me sometime?” Zeb asks him as Alexsandr comes to greet him in the doorway with it, every time, every day. There’s a soft grin on his face that just barely manages to hide the nervous energy underneath. “Come swim with me, ‘Sandr. The water’s great!” 

There’s nothing he wants more than to accept, to throw caution to the wind just for the pleasure of seeing Zeb’s emerald eyes sparkle a little stronger, a while longer. 

“I’d rather not.”    
Garazeb really does deserve  **so much more** . 

It takes another couple of days before Alexsandr becomes tired-frustrated-bored enough to, finally, cave in to the strange cravings he’s been experiencing and open,  _ really _ open up his closet and explore what’s inside. 

Zeb is busy in another one of his important calls and Chava has already come and gone, leaving enough leftovers behind for them to get through the rest of the day, so there’s no risk of- 

of what? Getting caught? He’s not doing anything wrong here, he’s simply… 

Alexsandr pulls one of the dresses out by the hanger, admiring the way that the fabric seems to flow through the air. 

He’s simply taking inventory of his gifts, before he finally cleans his room. 

_ Yeah, that’s right.  _ He thinks, glaring down at the clothes that are now lying scattered all around the floor.  _ I’m cleaning my room today. Maybe then I can finally  _ **_sleep._ **

Alexsandr holds the dress up towards the soft, warm light streaming in from the windows. Whoever made this for him (because it’s quite obviously handmade, probably by some local craftsman) seems to have been inspired by pre-Empire human fashion. Now that he thinks about it, the dress resembles the civilian clothes once favored by senator Padmé Amidala, only in earthier, humble beige and green hues, and tailored to his measurements. (how did they know his measurements, anyway?!) 

He runs his free hand down the soft, thin fabric. 

Unlike the senator, this would probably look ridiculous on him. He’s too tall, too broad shouldered and besides, he’s put on too much weight ever since he left the Empire, making his body soft and jiggly around his stomach and his thighs. 

He doesn’t try it on. But, despite the little voice in the back of his head nagging at him to do so, he doesn’t put it back in the closet either. 

Instead he walks up to the full-length mirror in his bedroom, holding the dress up before his person like it’s a shield. He stares himself, defiantly, into his tired brown eyes, until slowly his defences crumble and something in him goes pliant. 

Alexsandr smoothes the fabric of the dress out across the outline of his body, trying to imagine what it would look like if it was on him. A bit of the stress inside of him dissipates. 

“I knew it.” He laughs at himself, but there’s no real humor there. “I look ridiculous.” 

“What are ya’ talking about?” Garazeb’s voice comes from the doorway, startling Alexsandr into throwing the dress on his bed and himself down on top of it, as if  _ that  _ will hide anything! There’s a soft smile on the lasat’s lips and his pupils are wide and blown out in his eyes. “You’re gorgeous.” 

“I-” the human stutters, feeling the blood rush to his head. How long was Garazeb standing there?! How much did he  _ see _ ?! 

Just like that, the lasat seems to remember himself, because the awe-struck look in his eyes disappears and is replaced by a furious blush. 

“I mean- I’m sorry I didn’t mean to- I tried to knock but ya’ didn’t answer so I thought maybe- I’m just here to- I’ll go bury myself alive now.” 

Alexsandr watches him close the door behind him as he leaves, before giving in to the sheer embarrassment of it all and he throws himself, face first, onto his bed. 

“Stupid, stupid,  _ stupid- _ ” he berates himself, until he hears similar sounds of dismay from outside the house. 

Curiosity overriding the shame, the human gets up to sneak a peek through the window. 

True to his words and eerily similar to Alexsandr’s own behavior just now, Garazeb Orrelios is lying sprawled out with his face pressed against the sand, groaning in obvious discomfort. 

_ Oh. That’s right.  _ Alexsandr finds himself thinking, staring down at his object of affection. He seems to be pushing himself into the ground, like he’s thinking that if he does it long enough the sand will swallow him whole and really do bury him alive. The human smiles, not even realizing that he’s clutching the dress towards his chest.  _ He’s an idiot.  _

Somehow, that just makes him love him more. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Alexsandr does end up cleaning his room that day, but the new neatness to the place doesn’t help him sleep for more than the darkest couple of hours that night. As he’s lying awake, staring up at the ceiling, he thinks he can hear Zeb moving around downstairs. 

On the following day, the lasat has to go to an actual, physical meeting in the nearby town. He leaves Alexsandr at home together with Chava, that’s brought Gron, the other refugee that Alexsandr once tried to hunt down and throw in jail for the horrible crime of existing in a different body than a human one. It’s… awkward. 

“So… how are… things?” He asks, sipping at his coffee while trying to remember how to perform basic smalltalk. 

“Things are good…” Gron, that’s sitting next to Chava on the other side of the table, sips on his coffee in turn. “now that we’re safe from the Empire. It must have been horrible to serve as their puppet for so many years. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be for you to live with yourself, after doing so many terrible things.” 

“Oh quit your yapping, Gron!” Chava swats her little hand at the man. “By the light of Ashla’s wisdom, Kallus found his way back to us as a friend. Just imagine how much strength that must have taken, to question and renounce everything everyone’s ever taught you! The Queen in all of her kindness has decided that Kallus is more than welcome here on Lira San, and we must make him feel as such. ” She smiles and refills their cups. 

“I suppose.” Gron scoffs, glaring down at the coffee like it’s personally offended him. 

Meanwhile, Alexsandr is beginning to feel slightly ill. He’s not entirely sure if it’s because of the thinly veiled insults or the praise.

“You wouldn’t mind sparring with me, would you, Kallus?” Gron interrupts his dark thoughts, grinning at him in a way that reminds him of Garazeb. The familiarity of it is strangely comforting. “I’d like to see some of that Fulcrum strength for myself!” 

How could he refuse? He hasn’t had the chance to train with anything that wasn’t made of wool since they left Lothal! 

“It would be my honor to spar with a former high honor guard.” 

“You must feel  _ really  _ honored about living with my old captain, then.” 

“He’s-? Oh.” He didn’t know that. Though maybe he should have figured it out: Garazeb doesn’t like to talk about his past much, but during one of the few times he had been, he’d told Alexsandr that he’d been fairly high ranked in the Lasan High Honor Guard. Still, it makes him wonder just how much history Zeb and Gron shares and how close they’d once been. Were they friends back then? And if they were: what were the odds that they’d find each other again, after all of the horrors that  he  the Empire put them through? 

“Come on, human. I wanna figure out what Orrelios really sees in you.” 

For someone that’s rejected violence, Gron spars hard and aggressive. Alexsandr doesn’t mind though, meeting him strike for strike with just as much power of his own. It feels good, the adrenaline pumping as they dance around each other in the training room, exchanging blows with wooden staffs until his hands are clammy from the sweat and his body aches with exertion. 

Chava watches from the sidelines, and Alexsandr tries his best to ignore her disapproving look. They’re just training, after all. They’re not doing anything wrong. Besides, for the first time in a long time, Alexsandr is having  _ fun _ ! Gron seems to be sharing the sentiment, because every time their eyes meet the lasat’s grin grows one size bigger. 

But then it happens: Alexsandr fails a strike against Gron’s chest, and as he pulls back to retreat he leaves his side unprotected. Gron, being an experienced warrior, immediately spots the opening and strikes, slamming his staff against the humans bad leg with all of his might. For a moment, all Alexsandr sees is blinding, painful white, until his vision returns to him and he falls to his knees. 

His leg feels like it’s  **burning** _ ,  _ and for a moment he finds himself thinking that he’d just like to cut the limb off already - discard and leave this horrible, painful testament to his sins behind him and be done with it.    
Then Chava and Gron are on him, asking him if he’s alright, apologizing, fuzzing and fluttering around him like two very large, nervous butterflies, and Alexsandr is so embarrassed that he’s considering literally burying his head in the sand, much like Garazeb did the other day. Instead they help him to the couch in the living room, and the human is forced to explain to them that no, this isn’t Gron’s fault, the pain in his leg is caused by an old injury, and yes, the pain will pass by itself you don’t have to worry, and  _ no  _ he  _ doesn’t  _ need help being tucked into bed, thank you, Chava. It’s absolutely humiliating. 

Alexsandr stays on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep to the sound of the two lasats talking in low, muted voices in the other room. Meanwhile the pain slowly but steadily diminishes.

When he finally wakes up it’s to the sight of Garazeb leaning over him, touching his shoulder gently. 

“Hey, mate.” He says, smiling down at him in that soft way that makes Alexsandr’s heart skip a beat without fail, every single time. “I heard about what happened with Gron - they’ve left, by the way, but’uuh... You alright?”    
“Yeah,” Alexsandr, blinking the last sleep out of his eyes. Then he attempts to sit up straight, and the stab of pain makes him grimace. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Garazeb leans back, concern mingling with amusement on his face. 

“I can see that.” 

“Oh, shut up.” Alexsandr smiles, because it’s impossible not to when Zeb is around. “How was your meeting?”    
“Oooohh, pretty good, pretty good. I can’t really tell ya’ the details, but let’s just say that we won’t be cooped up in here for much longer! And Iuugh- I brought ya’ something.” The tips of his ears twitch when he says it, a tell tale sign of excitement. Alexsandr sits up a bit straighter, pain be damned. 

“You… brought me something? What? And  _ why _ ?” 

“Can’t a guy just get his good pal and roommate a couple of gifts without some ulterior motive?” Zeb says with a casual shrug, even as his face is on fire. 

Then the lasat turns around and starts to rummage with something behind him. 

“Sorry, I didn’t have time to get anything wrapped…” he mumbles, before turning back to Alexsandr with an armful of shopping bags in his arms. He dumps them all over the humans lap, still blushing and refusing to meet his eyes. 

Alexsandr blinks down at the bags, momentarily mystified about what to do next, until his mind jumps back into gear and he opens one of them. There’s fabric inside, in a soft, pale green colour that makes the human’s brain unhelpfully provide him with the thought that  _ this would go great with Garazeb’s eyes _ , until he pulls it out and the notion is replaced by a stunned little  _ oh _ . 

“Oh.” He says, holding the dress up before him with trembling hands. 

“I didn’t know what you’d like so I just kind of… well, I bought all of them.” Garazeb says, staring up at the ceiling while rubbing a hand through the fur on his neck. Then his eyes flicker to Alexsandr’s: anxious but hopeful. “Ya’ like it?” 

“I-” the human’s throat constricts. He’s feeling so many things at once, he’s having problems focusing on just one of them, but then he wills himself to meet Garazeb’s eyes and suddenly, happiness rushes over him like a wave, almost overwhelming him. He turns back to the dress, running his eyes across the tasteful embroideries and the intricate lacings. Never in a million years did he think that he’d have an urge to wear something so feminine and soft, and yet here he is. “I love it!” He laughs. “But I’m not sure if I could get it on even if I  _ tried! _ ” 

“What’cha mean? Is it the wrong size? I could probably get back to town and get a new one for ya’-”    
“No, no, Garazeb, it’s perfect! It’s just that the lacings look really complicated…” 

“Oh. Just that? Heh.” The lasat laugh. 

“What?”    
“Well, it’s just kind of funny, how ya’ somehow managed to doublecross the Empire, but ya’ can’t figure out how to put on a dress.” 

“Oh, shut up! Those uniforms the Empire made us walk around in may have been ghastly, but at least they were simple.”    
“Riiiiight.” Garazeb drawls, and despite the annoyance, Alexsandr can’t help but smile back at him. Then something shy enters the lasat’s eyes. “I could help ya’ put it on, if ya’ like?” He offers, voice soft, making the air leave Alexsandr’s lungs in a little gasp. 

“I- uhm…” He looks down at his knees, burying his fingers into the soft fabric of the dress. His heart is thundering in his chest. “I’d like that.” 

Five minutes later, Alexsandr’s switched out of his old clothes in the privacy of his bedroom (stealing a quick moment to scream into his pillow just to get all of the emotions out - and how silly is that? He’s acting like a lovestruck tween) and gone back down to allow Garazeb to lace the dress up for him. 

He’s hyper aware of the lasat’s movements behind him: counting the times his fingers glance against his skin, shivering at the feeling of his breath dancing across his neck. It takes all of his will-power not to turn around and drag Garazeb down for a kiss. 

It’s not until Zeb’s hands leave him that Alexsandr realize that he hasn’t felt the pain in his legs since the lasat came home. 

Slowly, apprehensively, the human turns around. As he moves, the fabric of the long dress swoosh around his feet. 

_ Huh.  _ He thinks.  _ Now that’s something to get used to.  _

Then he looks up at Garazeb, and the heated, dark look in the lasat’s eyes make all other thoughts leave him. For a moment, he’s absolutely  _ convinced  _ that Zeb is going to bridge the distance between them and kiss him, and the thought leaves Alexsandr breathless with anticipation. But then the look disappears, replaced by something lost, almost sad. 

“So?” Alexsandr says, if only to break this new, strange silence between them. “How do I look?” 

“I keep telling ya’, ‘Sandr.” Slowly, Garazeb’s face breaks out in a small, sombre smile. “You’re gorgeous.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

An hour later they’re still going through all of the clothes that Zeb’s gotten him. Turns out that they’re not all dresses, but a variety of different garments, masculine as well as feminine, mostly in soft, earthy tones of brown, beige and green. When Alexsandr asked why, Zeb mumbled something about the way they made his eyes shine, and the human had to tamp down on the urge to explore the implications of  _ that  _ before he literally imploded from all the emotions. 

“How did you even afford all of this?” He asks him, making Garazeb shuffle around awkwardly. 

“Weeeell, turns out that I’m a bit of a celebrity around here? So the ol’ goons who run the place decided to compensate me for all of my time with the rebellion. To save face, y’know?” 

“Oh.” 

“I don’t really know what to do with all the credits, so I figured that I might as well spend some on you… which reminds me!” Suddenly, Zeb reaches out for the few remaining bags, rummaging through them and tossing their contents all around him. “Fancy clothes wasn’t the only thing I bought ya’! Just need to find it…”    
“Oh, but, Zeb, you really shouldn’t have-”    
“AAAHA!” He pulls out a small package of… something? while grinning triumphantly. It sort of looks like a package of dried leaves. 

“What is that?”    
“What do  _ you  _ think it is?”    
“Well, it sort of looks like a package of dried leaves.”    
“That’s because it is a package of dried leaves!”

“But why would you-?”    
“Because,” he laughs. “It’s an ingredient. To make your Chandrilian tea.” 

“Oh.” Suddenly, Alexsandr is blushing again.  _ He remembered.  _ “Oh.” 

“I mean, it won’t be an exact replica, but I did some research and the ingredients should be cutting it pretty close. Besides, I talked to the vendor and apparently this baby right here-” he shakes the package of dried leaves around. “should help us sleep! Don’t think I haven’t noticed that ya’ haven’t been sleeping since we got here, because I haven’t either.” 

“I-” there’s too many emotions again, and way too many words to go with them, they’re all getting clogged in Alexsandr’s throat. “That’s perfect, Garazeb.” 

They brew the tea together, continuously bumping into each other in the small kitchen until all of their apologies turn to laughter, and even if the taste isn’t exactly what Alexsandr remembers it’s  _ perfect  _ because he gets to enjoy the comfort of the ceramic cup in his hands, the warmth of the water and the spices (cinnamon and something similar to apples) against his tongue while in the company of the one he loves. Sitting down with Garazeb on the couch in front of another one of his horrid holofilms, drinking the tea with the lasat at his side, Alexsandr feels warm, and happy, and safer than he’s ever been. 

And in this bubble of safety, the two of them fall asleep huddled against each other, much like how they slept while in the freezing cold on Geonosis moon. Only this time their hands are intertwined. 

It’s the best, most restful sleep Alexsandr’s experienced since they left Lothal. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lets go in for another deep dive of Garazeb's and Kallus' pasts, shall we?? Flashback 2/6, coming up!

**3 years before the Genocide:**

“Excuse me, everyone.” The old lasat man interrupts the general mayhem of the feast around him, bringing all attention to himself as he stands. Zeb, who’s dizzy from the wine and the happiness buzzing in his chest, grins as he catches his father's grey eyes through the crowd. “I would like to say a few words in honor of my son, Garazeb.” 

He clears his throat. It seems to Zeb as if the other man has gotten old over the course of a fortnight, his face covered in wrinkles and his fur streaked with silver, and yet when he stands at the foot of the table, lined on both sides by his trusted, elderly anoobas, his presence still manage to capture the room. Within seconds, the rowdy party has gone silent. 

“It hasn’t always been easy, raising you and your sister on my own. Though I suppose that Arik and Asjak helped too.” he jokes, gesturing to the animals. All around the table, people chuckle amiably. Zeb makes an attempt to catch Llorna’s eyes, but she’s glaring down at the table. Huh. He’ll check on her later. “but I’m sure that if your mother was here to see you today, she’d be so very proud of you! To think that our son would become the youngest honor guards captain in Lasan history, I-” he chokes on the words, and suddenly he looks every bit his age: frail and weak as he wavers. But then someone hands him a glass, he straightens, and when his eyes meet Garazeb’s again he’s the leader of the room once more, strong and firm. “I’m  _ so  _ proud of you, son. Now, here’s to you!” He raises his glass, and everywhere in the room people are raising them with him. Chest full of warmth, Zeb forces down a happy sob. “Garazeb Orrelios, Captain of the Lasan Honor Guard!” 

“Here here!” Everyone exclaims, then chugs down their glasses of liquor with abandon. 

While their guests are busy talking and drinking with each other, Zeb gets up from his seat and walks up to his father. He’s sitting down again, making small talk to Gron’s mother Gertrude, who’s a senior honor guardsman, and her wife Chava. 

“Thank you.” He says, before gathering him up in a hug. The once massive man has shrunk with age, and barely manages to reach Zeb’s shoulder now. 

“I love you, son.” 

“I love you too, dad.” 

He leaves him to party with the others, patting the anooba’s on their furry heads before he sneaks up to his grumpy sister. 

“Hey sis,” he says, planting his chin on the top of her head. “what’s with the sour face, sour face?” 

“Get off of me, ya’ big lump.” She complains, swatting him away from her. Then she turns to him with a deep frown on her face. “You know exactly why I’m mad.” 

“Can we not talk about that now?” He wines.    
“Aaahh, you say that, but ya’ wouldn’t be here talking to me if ya’ didn’t wanna talk about it!” 

“Fine.” He takes a step back, and she gets up after him. “If ya’ wanna do this, then let's do it.”

Llorna follows him deeper into the room, away from the people at the table. 

As they’ve aged, the two siblings have grown increasingly alike, until it’s become almost impossible for others to tell them apart. The only thing that really differs in their appearance is their clothing and their amount of hair: where Garazeb has only managed to grow a small goatee, his sister is sporting a full beard and a short buzz cut. 

Once they’re far enough away from everyone else not to be overhead, he turns to face her, steeling himself for what’s coming. She raises one, critical eyebrow in response. 

“So-?”    
“You’re making a mistake.” 

Garazeb sighs. 

“Oh yeah?”    
“Yeah. How can ya’ bring yerself to serve that old  _ hag?! _ ” 

“That old ‘hag’ is our Queen. The same Queen that our mom dedicated her life to protect.” 

“Exactly! And the only thing she got out from it was an early grave. You’re throwing yer life away for some old, corrupt croon who doesn’t give a shit if ya’ live or die!” 

“It’s a great honor to-”    
“Oh, save that bullshit for the speeches, Zeb!”    
Garazeb takes a deep, calming breath, trying not to lose his temper. 

“Why does everything always have to get political with ya’? Why can’t ya’ just be happy for me?” He asks, finally, allowing something vulnerable and pleading to slip into his voice. Slowly, the walls around Llorna crumbles, and what once was anger turns into sadness in her eyes. 

“I’m  _ scared _ , Zebby.”    
“Why? Ya’ know that I’m capable, that I can hold my own in battle. And even if I wasn’t, it’s peace-time! We’ve got nothing to worry about.” 

“Ya’ know as well as I do that the Empire’s been nosing around our part of the galaxy for a while now. And just the other day, my contacts on Kashyyyk stopped answering our com-calls! Bad times are coming, Zeb. And I don’t want my little brother to get caught up in the middle of it. Is that really so bad?”    
He sighs again, escaping her pleading eyes. 

“No. It’s not. But there’s no war here, and even if there will be ya’ can’t ask me not to fight in it. I’m not a lil’ kid anymore, I’m an adult.”    
“Ya’ll always be my lil’ brother, though.” She gives him a sad smile. 

“Get over yerself, already - you’re two minutes older than me!” Llorna laughs, and he grins right back at her. “You’re such a pain.”    
“Right back at’cha.” 

Their conversation is interrupted by Zeb’s colleagues. Gron throws his arms around Garazeb’s shoulders, slurring something loud and happy into his ear that he  _ thinks  _ was supposed to be    
“Captaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiin!”, and then they’re forced back to the table. 

The rest of the party passes in a drunken, but very happy blur, and for a while afterwards there really is calm, blissful peace on Lasan. 

Until a year later, when there isn’t anymore. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

**2 years before the Genocide:**

Special agent Alexsandr Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau takes his first steps out of the ship and onto Lasan’s soil. They’ve made land in the capital, invited by the royal family themselves, and Kallus can’t help but marvel at the differences between this bright, beautiful city and Coruscant. Here, the streets are wide and welcoming, lit by the light of the sun and lined by gorgeous stone architecture, trees and bushes on all sides. At home, the streets are crowded and dark, and he can count the plants he’s seen growing there using the fingers of a single hand. 

Running his eyes over the curious crowd of lasats that’s begun to gather around the ships, he catches the big, green eyes of one of them. Though their species seem alien and genderless to him, he figure that the creature staring at him must be female, based on her full head of, albeit shortcut, hair. She appears to be alone, except for the presence of two elderly anoobas. 

He’s been sent to Lasan to supervise the Empire’s colonization of the planet. It’s his first job as a special agent, but he’s been reassured that it will be easy as the locals have been more than welcoming thus far. They’d told him that his time on Lasan would be like a well-earned vacation. Even better: he’s got his friends from the academy and his brother here with him, placed on his squad as another reward for service well done. Watching the way that the lasat woman is glaring at him, like she’s holding herself back from attacking him, and the way that her anooba’s growl at his Imperial colleagues, he should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy. 

If only they’d understand that they’re there to help them, if they’d been able to comprehend how much they’d gain in the ways of protection and trade routes from becoming a part of the Empire, then Kallus is sure that they’d all be as welcoming as their royal family. But these aren’t people that he’s dealing with, they’re  _ savages _ . Just like their neighbors, the wookies on Kashyyyk.

Three days after arriving on Lasan, a local lasat terrorist blows up the armory, killing several stormtroopers and, by pure happenstance, the acting general in charge of the occupation. Suddenly, Kallus finds himself in control of not just himself and his squad, but an entire military outpost, that’s called Delta and that’s situated to the west of Lasan’s capital city. His advisors are urging him to fight fire with fire. 

“Our military engineers have developed a new weapon that the Emperor is eager to see in action,” they say. “It’s a great opportunity to show some initiative.” 

They call them T-7 ion disruptors.

He has a shipment of them sent to his battalion, and once they arrive he brings Sebastien with him to the training grounds to try them out. 

“Tell me why we’re doing this again.” His brother complains, holding the rifle to his chest awkwardly. Meanwhile, Kallus is running up the length of the shooting range with a banana in his hand. 

“Because,” he says, putting it down on the ground. “whenever I ask, everyone keeps going on and on about the effectiveness of these weapons, saying how they’ll short-circuit ships and vehicles with a single shot. But no one seems to know or want to talk about their effects on organic beings.” He turns to his brother, smirking at him. He’s always loved explaining things to him, relishing in being the intellectual of the two. 

Sebastien rolls his eyes.

“Sooo whatever happens to that banana when I fire at it should be what happens if I shoot a lasat? Right?” 

“Exactly.” He glances down at the fruit really quick, then back to Sebastien. He shrugs. “I know that this seems silly, I’m honestly not expecting anything more exceptional than a blaster shot, but it can’t hurt to try. And I’d like to see it in action before I send my men out to fight with these.”    
“ _ Your _ men,” Sebastien smirks. “Look at you, mr Special Agent Alexsandr Kallus! Mother would have been proud of you.” 

“Shut up.” Kallus blushes, flustered at the praise, before he runs back up to his brother's side. “Now I order you to shoot that banana!”    
“Yes, commander.” 

Sebastien takes aim, presses the trigger and - nothing. 

The rifle barely made a sound, and the banana looks more or less untouched. But there’s smoke coming from the butt of it and a strange, almost acidic scent in the air. Around them, the world seems eerily quiet, like it’s holding its breath. 

“I don’t think this thing is working-” Sebastien begins to say, until Kallus sees  _ something.  _

“The banana!” He gasps, sprinting towards it with his brother close on his heel. 

As they reach it, they see how it’s slowly, painfully beginning to fall apart. The peel comes off first, turning a sick green colour before it disintegrates into nothing before their very eyes. The sickness spreads to the flesh of the fruit, that looks almost as if it's molding before their eyes. Slowly, the stitches holding it together break apart and the banana falls into several wet lumps, which then turn into nothing. It’s like watching something decay in hyperspeed, the atoms disintegrating before their very eyes. 

Kallus watches it all with rapt fascination, too entranced by the process to realize the potential horror of it all. But then, once all traces of the banana have disappeared off the face of Lasan, and he turns to observe his brother’s reaction, he finds Sebastien’s face pale with horror. 

“Promise me,” he stutters, dropping the rifle to the ground like he’s disgusted to be holding it. “promise me that you’ll never use these. That, no matter what happens here, you won’t use these things on another living being.”    
“I-”    
“ **Promise me,** Alexsandr!” Sebastien begs of him with something almost manic in his wide brown eyes. 

Kallus takes a shocked step back. His brother has  _ never  _ talked to him like this before, has never seemed so horrified or afraid before him. He looks to the weapon, to the place where the banana used to be. What happened to it will happen to the lasats, if they use the weapons against them. What happened to it will happen to Sebastien, if anyone ever aims the gun at him. 

“I promise.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all: Space-bananas. Am I right???   
> Second of all: The wordcount on the chapters in this fic vary WILDLY, and this is the first really long one. So strap yourself in, drink a beverage of your choice and enjoy the slightly longer ride than usual :)   
> May the Force be with you until next week! <3

“Y’know, I’ve never understood the whole gender-thing.” Garazeb mumbles one evening, just as Alexsandr is beginning to nod off to sleep. 

They’re sitting in the living room, the human on the couch and the lasat on the floor before him.

Zeb is leaning his back against the furniture while Alexsandr is relishing in the heat of his body as it soaks into the side of his leg. Outside the sky is coloured in its darkest shade of red. If Alexsandr had ever found the hue intimidating, he thinks it calming now. 

Just like on the Ghost, watching a holofilm together before they go to bed has become a habit. The only difference is that now, with the help of the tea, they end up falling asleep halfway through the movie more often than not. It’s not always the most comfortable sleeping position: Alexsandr’s woken up plenty of times with a sore neck or a stiff back, reminding him of his age, but it’s definitely worth it for the excuse of staying close to Garazeb. It doesn’t seem to matter how far apart they fall asleep, as long as they’re in the same room they find each other sometime during the night, to hold hands or…  _ more.  _ He flushes at the memories, remembering the times he’s woken up with his face in the crook of Zeb’s neck and their legs intertwined, or the times he’s woken up to the lasat curled against his back, or that one time when- 

“‘Sandr? You asleep, mate?” Garazeb asks, softly, like he’s afraid that he’ll wake him. 

Alexsandr shakes himself out of it, looking down at the lasat at his feet. Zeb has angled his head back to look at him, and suddenly all the human can think about is how easy it would be to cradle his face in his hands, lean down and kiss him. 

Funny, how such a simple little fantasy can be so exciting and so terrifying, all at once. 

“Almost.” He says instead, making Zeb chuckle. “Sorry, you were saying?”    
Garazeb twists and turns away from the movie to look at him properly. 

“I was just saying that I never really  _ got  _ the whole gender-thing that humans got going on. Like, it took me  **years** to understand that some types of clothes are for men and some for women. I still don’t really get WHY you’d do it! We lasats… we don’t really think like that. Here people are just…  _ people. _ ” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it that way.” Alexsandr says after some contemplation. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it at all.” 

“Neither did I, until I left Lasan.” 

_ And now you’ve left human civilization behind.  _ The words go between them unsaid. 

Alexsandr looks down at his knees, hands tightening around each other in his lap. 

“I’ve never seen you in a dress.” He says, finally.

“I don’t like ‘em. I never saw Sabine in a dress either. Or Hera.” 

“But you’re saying that there are others…?” Alexsandr meets Garazeb’s eyes again, heart skipping a beat at the sight of his soft smile. He’s feeling naked and vulnerable before him, perceived in a way that he’s not used to. If it had been anyone else, he would have fled from this. But not Zeb. Never Zeb. “other lasat men that wear women’s clothes?”    
“Not  _ women’s  _ clothes, ‘Sandr.  **Their** clothes. That just happens to be dresses, or skirts, or whatever. Just wait ‘til we can go explore the city, then you’ll see how common it is!” 

The lasat turns back to the movie, leaving Alexsandr alone with his thoughts and the light, fluttering feeling that’s currently doing a little dance against his ribcage. Finally, he can’t contain himself anymore: he leans forward, quick and stealthy, and sneaks a quick kiss to the side of Garazeb’s head. The lasat stiffens, his fur ruffling down his neck, and Alexsandr resists the urge to pull him into a hug. 

“Thank you.” He whispers instead, before he sits back up and turns his attention to the holofilm as if nothing even happened. 

Slowly, Garazeb relaxes against the couch once more, and before the movie is over, the two of them are sound asleep. The morning after, once Alexsandr’s managed to disentangle himself from the arm that Zeb’s managed to throw over him sometime during the night, he gets dressed in a skirt along with his favorite sweater, trying not to think of it as women’s clothing, but as  _ his  _ clothing. 

Neither the republic military academy or the Empire ever gave him the opportunity to discover himself, never to mention reflect upon any of the norms and values that they were feeding him. Perhaps Lira San can be Alexsandr’s chance to reinvent himself? More importantly, Lira San might be his chance to  _ redeem  _ himself. Maybe, just maybe, he might even become someone worthy of Garazeb’s affections.

Even though he’s not entirely sure how yet, Alexsandr can’t wait to get out of the house so that he can get to work on making his amends to the lasat’s. 

Finally, two weeks after their arrival on Lira San, Zeb delivers the news that they’ve been waiting for: their quarantine is about to end, and their new freedom will be celebrated with nothing less than a feast at the royal palace. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The Queen is, apparently, known for throwing large, spontaneous parties at the drop of a hat. Therefore, they’re picked up by a self-driving vehicle on the day following their invitation. 

Alexsandr, who’s never been very fond of parties and is even less comfortable with last-minute-plans, spends most of the day cursing the anxiety induced pain in his leg while fretting about what to wear. Though he’d love to wear one of the beautiful, elaborate dresses that Garazeb gave him, he’s still too embarrassed to do it outside of the house. Instead, he settles on a copper robe with delicate, gold embroidery around the wide cuffs, with a beige dress shirt underneath. 

But if Alexsandr is feeling on edge, then that’s nothing compared to the way that Garazeb is sitting, stiff and pale-looking beside him in the backseat of the vehicle. If lasat’s had sweat glands, the human is sure that he’d be drenched by now. 

“Are you… alright?” The human asks, tentative. 

Garazeb’s eyes, that've been glued to his own knees for the past ten minutes, flickers up to look at him. 

“I’m just-” he clears his throat. “a lil’ nervous, is all.”    
“Ah, well-” Alexsandr searches his brain for something comforting to say. He’s  _ so bad  _ at this. “What do you have to be nervous about? I thought you said that you’re a celebrity around here! Everyone already loves you.” 

“Yeeaaaahh well,” the lasat scratches his neck, looking a bit flustered at the praise. “I’ve just… never been the best at diplomatic missions, y’know? And I haven’t met or talked to the Queen before, so this is sort of my big chance to-” 

Alexsandr straightens.    
“Wait. What? What mission?” 

“Oh. Oh! Well, before we left Lothal, senator Mon Mothma contacted me. Y’see there’s this big debate going around on Lira San right now, about whether or not they should accept more refugees than just the ones from Lasan. Letting ya’ live here was sort of a big step in that direction, but the government is still, officially, undecided. Soooo, Mon Mothma asked me to help and persuade them.” 

“So what? I’m some sort of a political pawn now, or a symbol? Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”    
“I don’t know, I guess it just… didn’t come up.” 

A tense silence settles between them. Alexsandr’s head is spinning. Suddenly, he’s feeling even more hesitant to attend this party. How are people going to act around him? Is he going to be the center of political debates? Or is he going to be asked to take a stance on the matter? And if that’s the case, why wasn’t  _ he  _ approached by the senator?

“I’m sorry, ‘Sandr.” Garazeb finally breaks the silence, looking contrite. “Shit’s been so crazy lately, and I… well, I honestly didn’t wanna get ya’ involved in this. You’ve got enough on yer mind without this mess to worry about.”    
Alexsandr sighs. 

“That’s alright. But the next time you’re in possession of information that affects me, I’d like you to tell me about it. I’m a grown man, I can handle it.” 

“Yeah, sorry. That’s fair.” 

Suddenly, he remembers the threats he’s been receiving. Was that connected to this political strife as well? Is the person that’s been harassing them part of the anti-refugee movement? 

He ponders this until they reach the capital. 

The city of San Lira is a beautiful marvel of architectural ingenuity. Ancient-looking, overgrown stone buildings make up for the majority of all constructs, with occasional large, looming towers that stretch and twirl towards the skies like gigantic tentacles, bursting from the ground. They’re all covered, from root to tip, in exotic vegetation: big, red leafs, yellow moss and tiny luminescent mushrooms. The roads are wide stone paths that seem to shine in the amber light of Lira San’s evening suns, and as far as Alexsandr’s can see the streets are bustling with lasats! Meeting the occasional few is an entirely different experience to seeing a city full of them, moving and breathing and thriving all around him. These people are living peacefully in their very own pocket of the universe, completely unbothered by and safe from the Empire. The thought brings happy tears to Alexsandr’s eyes. 

When they arrive at the palace, Alexsandr’s managed to (more or less) compose himself, wiping the unshed tears from his eyes with the back of his hand when Garazeb wasn’t looking. 

The lasat gets out of the carriage first, shooting him a nervous smile before he helps Alexsandr out of the vehicle. The human accepts his hand gratefully, as the pain in his leg is making him feel stiff and awkward. Besides, Zeb is looking almost ridiculously handsome tonight, wearing a silver suit that enhances his broad shoulders and the purple stripes running across the back of his head and his forearms. 

They’re surrounded by servants the moment they’re both outside, that transports their vehicle away to wherever it needs to go. Garazeb says something in lasan that makes them laugh, and then the two of them are moving up the stairways to the palace, Alexsandr still clinging to Zeb’s arm.    
They don’t make it very far. Everyone seems eager to speak to Garazeb, that makes sure to present Alexsandr to the lasats they talk to despite the fact that none of them speaks a word of basic. Garazeb’s nervosity is painfully obvious at first, as he stumbles his way across the syllables of the Lasan language with a hand on his neck and his ears pressed downwards, but then some upper class snob laughs at (what Alexsandr assumes is) one of his jokes, and before long he’s the same old, loud and wise-cracking person that the human has come to know and admire him as. 

Alexsandr recognizes some of the people they talk to from stolen glances at the others meetings, but most are completely new faces. He doesn’t mind the fact that he can’t communicate with anyone, he actually finds it to be somewhat of a relief: this way he can put all of his energy on studying their environment, instead of attempting to make smalltalk. 

As they finally walk into the building and it’s huge, domed hall, Alexsandr’s begins to feel silly about his previous reservations regarding his clothes. Just like Zeb had told him, lasat’s dress however they please, regardless of biological sex. There are huge, bulking males clothed in colourful silk dresses, petite females wearing sharp-looking tuxedos and people of indeterminable genders wearing everything in between. While Garazeb is busy talking to a tall, female lasat in a tail-coat and her carrot-headed partner, who’d introduced herself as Simp, Alexsandr admires the architecture of the place. 

The hall is perfectly round, with eight enormous, blue-painted windows in each direction of Lira San’s latitudes. The sun’s are currently shining through four of them, bathing the room in a beautiful, indigo light that dances across the furniture and the intricate carvings of the stone floor before them. But the true marvel of the place are the walls, that are covered in growing vines that have been cultivated in such a way as to create pictures: of dancing lasats, running anooba’s and, splattered across the expanse of the sky, millions of tiny, blue flowers that depict the stars. Alexsandr follows the living artwork with his eyes, until they finally land on the throne. Pictured above it is a pale, almost eerily humanesque lasat female, with long green hair, a beard and clothes made of flowers and light. There’s a convor on her right shoulder, staring out over the hall. As the light of the sun hits their eyes, Alexsandr realizes that, unlike everything else on the walls, they’re made of gemstones instead of plants. 

“That’s the Daughter. Or Ashla, as the old folks around here like to call her.” Garazeb interrupts Alexsandr’s observations, pulling him back into reality. The two women seem to have left them, no doubt to go  bother  socialize with someone else. “When I was growing up, my old man taught me that she’s the personification of the light side of the Force.”    
“Do you believe that?”    
“I dunno… I didn’t use to. It was just something that adults  _ said,  _ y’know? ‘Ya better brush yer fangs, or Ashla’s light will stop shining on ya’!’” Alexsandr snorts out an amused laugh. Zeb grins right back at him. “But then I met Kanan, and he and Ezra kept getting mixed up with so much weird shit! Did I ever tell ya’ about the time we got teleported to the other side of Lothal by a bunch of stinkin’  _ wolves _ ?”    
“You have.” Alexsandr smiles. “But I’m still not sure if I believe it. Would you indulge me by telling the story again?” 

“Oh.” Garazeb blushes, apparently caught off-guard by that. “Oh, well, I-” then his eyes flicker towards the throne. He tenses up. “I’ll tell ya’ later. Right now, I think we should get in line to talk with the Queen.”    
He seems nervous again. Alexsandr squeeze his arm in a way that he hopes is reassuring.    
“Of course.” 

As if queuing wasn’t boring enough already, they’re still under constant siege of the high society snobs of Lira San. Alexsandr can tell that their presence is beginning to take a toll on Garazeb, that seems more tense with each slow step they take towards the throne, and decides to draw their attention towards himself instead. They’re all delighted when he performs the traditional Lasan greeting for them, bowing his head down with the fist of one hand in the palm of the other, and Alexsandr tries not to show his annoyance as they coo over him like he’s some exotic pet that Zeb’s brought along. 

Fifteen minutes of this horrible facade later, they’re standing before the Queen herself. 

She’s an impressive figure: even sitting down Alexsandr can tell that she’s a head taller than everyone else in the room, and something about the gleam in her clever brown eyes seem to demand the attention of everyone around her. Her massive, dark shape is draped in white silks, her brown beard is braided and her long hair has been put up into the most elaborate hairdo Alexsandr’s ever seen. On her lap are two young lasat babies, that are clinging to her breasts as she feeds them. 

“Captain Garazeb Orrelios and Captain Alexsandr Kallus.” she says, her words translated by an etiquette-droid on her side. The two of them bow their heads down in a version of the Lasan greeting that requires them to get down on one knee on the floor. It’s a stiff affair, as the pain in Alexsandr’s leg is making itself known, but at least he doesn’t regret wearing pants anymore. “Our very own guests of honor... Welcome to the royal palace of San Lira! I trust that you’ve been enjoying your stay, so far?” 

“Thank you, your highness.” Garazeb says in basic. “We’ve traveled long and I’ve waited even longer to see you. If it’s not too pre-  _ karabast-!” _ he curses silently, and Alexsandr reaches out a hand to support him. Zeb shoots him a grateful little smile, before he carries on. “too presumptuous of me, then I’d like to ask for an audience with you. About the refugees-”    
“Captain Orrelios.” She cuts him off, and Alexsandr feels the lasat jump beneath his hand. “As much as I’m sure that I’d enjoy spending more time with you, I prefer not to discuss politics during parties. Please, rise for me, and we’ll talk of happier things.” 

The two give each other a quick glance, before Alexsandr lets go of Garazeb’s shoulder and they make their way back up to their feet. Pain shoots its way through the humans leg, but when he winces Zeb helps him stand tall. 

“If ya’ don’t mind, your highness…” Garazeb says, eyes flickering nervously between the Queen and the floor. “I have one more request. A personal one.”    
“Oh?”

“Back on Lasan, I served as a captain of the Queen’s honor guard for three years. I proved myself a capable warrior then, and my years as a refugee and rebel since has only made me stronger. Now I offer my services to you, my Queen…” The human can only watch, his mind blank with shock, as Garazeb slips his hand through Alexsandr’s grasp. He takes a step forward and kneels before the throne. “as your honor guard. If you’ll have me.” 

He’d had no idea that Zeb was planning to do this. No wonder he’d been so nervous on the way here. 

Alexsandr turns towards the Queen, but she’s nearly impossible to read. The human wants desperately for her to accept, for Garazeb’s sake. And yet another, small and scared little part of him wants her to decline. Suddenly he’s feeling almost paralyzed with the fear that the lasat will leave him behind, directionless and alone on this alien planet, in the middle of nowhere, in a house he never asked for. Eventually though, the part of him that doesn’t want Zeb to get hurt, not when he’s put his pride and his heart on the line like this, wins out. The memory of them dancing on the Ghost together flutters by, reminding him of the vibration of Zeb’s chest against the palm of his hand, and the look in his eyes after Alexsandr rejected him. 

“Rise, Garazeb.” The Queen finally says, smiling down at him with all of the benevolence of an executioner. 

Slowly, Zeb follows her instructions. Alexsandr tries to catch a glimpse of his expression, but he’s keeping his face turned away from him. 

“As flattered as I am of your offer, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to deny your request. For you see, this is Lira San, not Lasan, and things are different here. We have no need for warriors, or Honor Guards.” She detaches herself, gently, from her children and gestures towards the figure of the Daughter above her. “Here, at the very heart of our beautiful starcluster, and with Ashla’s light shining down upon us, we are safe.” 

All around the hall, people are breaking out into applause at their Queens words. But Alexsandr barely notices them, he’s got his eyes set on Garazeb, whose usually proud, tall figure seems to be deflating in front of his very eyes. 

“Ah.” Garazeb breathes, before stepping back into line next to Alexsandr, his face a blank mask. 

“But enough of this, I’ve arranged gifts for the both of you!” The Queen exclaims, once the applause has died down, as if she didn’t just dismiss another person’s lifelong dream as childish nonsense and break his heart (barely mended from the last time, Alexsandr knows).   
The next thing they know, a servant is approaching Alexsandr with the first gift: a beautiful, elaborately hand-carved cane in white wood, with the snarling head of an anooba on top for him to hold. The human takes the cane in hand, but as pretty as it is, his heart isn’t truly in it when he says his thanks. 

The delivery of Garazeb’s present is a lot more sensational. A mechanical roar comes through the entrance, and then the high society of Lira San are laughing and scurrying out of the way as a speeder is driven up and parked right in front of them. Garazeb’s mask crumbles as he stares at it, all big eyes and slack jawed, until the servant comes up and presses the keys into his hands. 

“I hope these gifts will inspire the two of you to get out and explore more of our beautiful planet.” The Queen declares, spurring more applause around the room as Zeb sputters out an awkward thank you in lasan. 

Not long thereafter, Garazeb’s new speeder has been sent away with a servant to be delivered to their home, he’s acting more or less like himself again, and all of the guests have been situated around the long tables for dinner. 

Alexsandr can’t quite hide his excitement: as a soldier of the Empire, he’d rarely had the chance to enjoy actual food, surviving most of his life on ration bars and energy pudding. 

He has a very vivid memory of his first meal after he’d become part of the rebellion. He’d been sitting on the cold metal floor of the Ghost, surrounded by people but feeling very much alone, when someone put a bowl of soup into his hands. Alexsandr had been careful, and incredibly sceptical, before taking a sip, as he wasn’t used to warm food and he wasn’t sure if he was eating it right. Then the spices hit his tongue, and as the soup went into his mouth, down his throat and his stomach, Alexsandr felt as if the blood in his veins turned liquid fire. As he’d finally opened his eyes again and looked up, Garazeb had been standing before him, greeting him with an awkward little ‘hey’. That had been the first time he’d  _ really  _ noticed the colour of his eyes. 

He’s considered himself a gastronome ever since. 

Now he’s faced before a literal feast of exotic dishes, and Alexsandr throws himself into trying a little bit of everything. He becomes completely entranced with this project until he notices the way that Zeb keeps glancing at him with a knowing little smirk on his face. 

“What?” He asks, his mouth full of strange vines that writhe a little underneath his teeth and taste, strangely, like cigarette smoke. 

“Nothing.” Zeb snickers. 

“What?!”    
“Nothing, it’s just… those aren’t for eating, mate. They’re part of the decor.” 

“Oh.  _ Oh _ .” He spits them out. He’d  _ thought  _ it odd that they came served in a pot full of dirt. 

Then the lights in the great hall dim, and Alexsandr watch, slack jawed, as a troupe of fifteen lasats take the stage and perform a strangely familiar dance. 

“ _ That’s _ what you were trying to teach us?” The human whispers, watching in awe as one of them uses his friend’s back as a trampoline, somersaulting through the air. 

“A version of it, yeah.” Zeb chuckles, his eyes still on the performance. 

“So what’s it called? The dance?” 

Slowly, the lasat turns to him with a warm smile on his lips. Then he gestures towards the anooba’s, depicted running all around them on the walls.    
“Apparently, they call it Llorg dans. Or ‘Dance of the Anooba’, in basic.” He chuckles. “Can’t believe I’d forget that!” 

“Your people sure seem to love those canines?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of myths about them in lasat culture. They’re the protectors of our people. And in times when we’re lost…” Garazeb turns back to the performance, something solemn in his eyes. “they’re supposed to help and lead us home.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“About the Queen…” Alexsandr says, once the show is over, the food has been removed from the table and all they’re left with is wine and each other's company. This has been bothering him for a while now, and he’s finally tipsy enough to dare ask. “or, more accurately, about her children. Is it common, for lasat’s, to have-” he makes some vague hand gestures. “two?” 

“Yeah.” Zeb grunts, hiding his face behind his jug of wine. “Yeah, lasat’s usually get twins. Why?” 

“I was just wondering if  _ you  _ had any siblings. You never told me.” 

A brief memory of kind, chocolate eyes and freckled cheeks flash by. Alexsandr has never told Zeb of  _ him  _ either. 

Garazeb places his drink down on the table with a far-away look in his eyes. 

“My twin sister. Llorna.” He says, finally. Something dark passes across his features. “Karabast… I haven’t said her name in a  **long** time.” 

“I had a brother-” Alexsandr says, in an attempt to chase some of that darkness away. “Sebastien.”    
A slow, lazy smile appears on Zeb’s face, making his heart skip a beat. 

Then Garazeb asks: 

“What was he like?” and the warmth in Alexsandr’s chest is replaced by a sudden stab of grief. 

What  _ was  _ Sebastien like? It was so long ago, he barely remembers what he looked like anymore, except that he was tall, ginger and that his eyes- 

“Kind.” He finally breathes, in barely more than a whisper. “He was kind.” He turns back to Zeb with a forced smile. “What about your sister?”    
“She was a pain in the arse!” The lasat exclaims, shocking a laugh out of him. Then something soft enters his eyes once more. “I miss her. A lot.” 

Alexsandr raises his glass. 

“To siblings.”

Garazeb grins and raises his glass in turn.    
“To siblings!” 

They toast and drink together, swapping happy stories about their families for a while until they’re interrupted by Alexsandr’s least favorite lasat in this solar system: ambassador Andain Royot. The tall, stupidly handsome man is wearing a long, purple and tight dress for the occasion and he’s pulled the hair on his head back into several long fishbone braids. On his arm is a fairly short, skinny lasat, with light grey skin and white stripes, that’s looking as homely and pale as Royot is looking elegant and dark. The stranger’s got a pair of nervous, bright blue eyes, and he introduces himself as 

“Professor Ka’edo Darjed, at your service!” He says in perfect basic, shaking Alexsandr’s hand enthusiastically. “I am so excited to finally meet you, captain Kallus!” 

“I- oh- thank y-  _ why _ ?” The human stutters, eyes flickering between the bright eyed stranger and Garazeb, that’s being pulled to the floor by Royot. Zeb shrugs and Alexsandr decides to follow him, getting up with the help of his cane. 

“Professor Darjed here is my old colleague from San Lira’s university,” Royot explains, eyes running down Zeb’s physique as if he’s looking forward to devouring him. Garazeb seems slightly embarrassed by, but not entirely opposed to, the attention, and Alexsandr, that’s suddenly fuming with jealousy, resists the urge to growl at the two of them. “he’s the head of the anthropology department.”    
“Anthropology?” Interest peaked, he turns back to the professor, that’s somehow managed to nestle his way even closer into his personal bubble while he wasn’t paying attention. The human takes a shocked little step back. “As in the study of-?”    
“The study of humans! Yes! Truth be told, us lasats don’t study a lot of other alien species, never to mention dedicate entire fields of studies to them, but there’s been a blossoming interest in humans lately! For obvious, genocidal reasons. Speaking of which: don’t you find it curious how the Queen’s decided not to enact any punishment on you, for your part in the genocide on Lasan? You’d think that she’d put you before a trial, at least!” The professor laughs, making the hairs of his little mustache bounce around. 

“Ah.” Alexsandr stutters. He picks up his jug of wine and downs a large mouthful of the liquid. He’s got a feeling that he’s going to need the alcohol. “Yes, I suppose that would have been… appropriate.” 

“You wouldn’t mind appearing as a guest in my class some time, would you? We’d love a first hand source for our research!”    
“Ehm… I don’t know about that. Garazeb, what do you-?”    
But as he turns towards him, he finds that Zeb is being pulled away from them by Royot, disappearing into the crowds with an apologetic look on his face. 

“Sorry, Zeb, but I have to ask,” he hears Royot say from afar, his eyes running between the other lasat and Alexsandr with a sly little smile. “about you and the human. Is he your… how do you say,  _ ljulofa _ ?”    
“I- ehm- no I-” Garazeb seems flustered, until he meets Alexsandr’s eyes. Something about the way he looks at him then, disappointment mingling with melancholy in his eyes, makes the human’s heart sink in his chest. “Nah. He’s not into me like that.” 

Alexsandr watches as they disappear completely into the crowd. 

“Oh, but do promise that you’ll consider it, at least!” The professor tugs at his arm, bringing him back into reality. Alexsandr pulls it out of the man’s grasp, uncomfortable by the touches (he’s never liked it when people invade his space - Garazeb being one of the few exceptions) and a bit disoriented. 

What were they talking about again? 

Oh, yes, the professor’s ‘human-studies’. 

“Ah. Yes, yes of course. What’s a ljulofa?” 

“A ljulofa?” The professor does an almost comical double-take. “Why, that’s the lasat word for partner or lover. Why do you ask?” 

Jealousy and, above all, guilt over making Zeb feel like his affections are one-sided, runs like a cold stab through him, intensifying the dark feelings that are already at work. 

“No reason.”    
Alexsandr raises his glass and chugs the rest of its contents down in one fell swoop, staring forlorny in the direction of the other two’s disappearance. Then he picks up another jug of wine from the table. He’s got a feeling that he’s gonna need it to get through the rest of the night.

Many drinks later, Alexsandr finds himself good and thoroughly wasted as he’s making his way through the crowd; his new fancy cane tucked safely beneath his arm and the professor supporting him on the other. Everywhere around him, the highgrass of San Lira’s society seem just as drunk as he is, talking and laughing way too loud and spilling their drinks on the beautiful stone floors: some of them are even dancing to the strange, rhythmic music that’s pulsating around the room. Outside, the sky has gone from its darkest shade of red to a pale orange, making the light in the room a strange green shade as it’s filtered through the blue, painted windows.    
The Queen left the party with her children a long time ago, and yet there’s still guards situated around her throne, probably to keep the drunks from climbing it. 

Finally, Alexsandr reaches his destination as he bumps into the warm, familiar shape of Garazeb. 

“‘Sandr?” He asks, and as Alexsandr focuses on him through the haze of alcohol clouding his vision, he finds himself tongue-tied. “Looks like ya’ got a bit too much of that wine in ya, mate. You okay?” The lasat chuckles, and then an exchange takes place as Alexsandr is moved from professor Darjed’s arm to Garazeb’s. Andain Royot is nowhere to be seen. 

“I’m good.” Alexsandr finally manages, and as he’s leaning against the firm, comforting shape of him, the human finds that he means it. “Actually, I’m perfectly splendid. Zeb,” As their eyes meet, clear green against misty brown, Alexsandr can’t remember a single good reason as to why he  **shouldn’t** pursue a romantic relationship with the lasat. After all, the unfortunate events on Lasan happened  _ years  _ ago, Garazeb has assured him that he’s put the events of it behind him, and they’re standing so  _ close  _ together right now, all it would take is a little push off the balls of his feet onto the tip of his toes, and then they’d be- 

“dance with me?” He breathes instead, shaking from excitement and exertion and the wine running through his veins like electricity, like soup made of liquid fire, like discovering gold in a forest of green and _ ‘I guess I did go a little crazy. For you.’ _ . 

But instead of taking Alexsandr’s hand in his, instead of leading him to the dancefloor and enveloping him in that same, soft embrace as he once had on the Ghost, like the human had imagined it, Garazeb pulls back, taking a small step back.

There’s a smile on his face, but it looks forced, almost painful. Alexsandr resists the urge to reach out and smooth it off his features.    
“C’mon, doll. Lets go home.” 

Alexsandr doesn’t remember much of what happens after that, but when he wakes up the following the day it’s in the comfort of his own bed, with a glass of water and some painkillers on the side table. Garazeb is sitting, sound asleep and snoring lightly, in the armchair across the room. He makes sure to put a blanket over him before heading into the bathroom to barf. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Alexsandr may never have gotten a trial like professor Darjed suggested, but once the party is over and done with, it doesn’t take long for the consequences of his sins to come knocking on his door in other ways. 

Just two days after the feast, that had served as Alexsandr’s impromptu reveal to the people of Lira San and a statement by the Queen that he’s more than welcome on the planet, the human wakes up to a vandalized house, covered top to bottom in graffiti, and Garazeb frantically trying to scrub it all away. 

“Garazeb.” Alexsandr says, voice even and calm despite the rapid beating of his heart. The lasat jumps, and when he finally turns to face him it’s with an impossibly guilty look on his face. “You didn’t actually think that you’d be able to clean all of this yourself, did you?”    
The human gestures towards the words, the hundreds of  **Murderer** and  **Empire Dog** and  **JUSTICE** that’s littering the facade. But then one word in particular, the one that Garazeb was caught in the act trying to scrub away, catch Alexsandr’s eye, and he finds himself going dangerously cold inside. 

That’s Garazeb’s name. 

Garazeb’s name, and something else, something written in lasan that the human can’t translate. 

“What does that one mean?” Alexsandr asks. 

“Which one?” The lasat responds, moving a bit so that he’s covering the entire thing with his back. 

“The one behind you, Garazeb?” He deadpans. “The one with your name in it.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate.” 

“Oh, out of all the stubborn-!” 

Alexsandr walks up to him, muttering nervous curses underneath his breath as he shoo’s and pushes the lasat aside. He points to the big, angry text on their wall. 

“This one!” 

“Ah. That one.” Garazeb shoots him a shaky, half-hearted grin. He’s looking strangely pale today, his ears twitching nervously. Now that Alexsandr is taking the time to look at him properly, it’s making him feel a bit bad. But he really,  _ really  _ needs to know what the text says, and why the other man felt the need to hide it from him. 

“It’s nothing good, ‘Sandr.” He says finally, staring down at the ground where the sponge in his hand is dripping big, wet splotches of water onto the earth, as if they were teardrops. 

“What does it mean?” 

Slowly, Garazeb looks up at him through the lashes of his eyes. There’s something impossibly sad in his gaze. Then he changes gears completely, throwing the sponge back into the bucket and his head back into a big, forced grin. 

Alexsandr  _ hates  _ that look on him. 

“Well, I can’t give ya’ an exact translation, but’uuuuhhh, basically?” He laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck, and the sound echoes hollow against the open landscape around them. “They’re calling me a traitor!” 

Despite the warm weather, the cold in Alexsandr grows, leaving him feeling strangely empty, but more clear headed than he’s been in a long time. 

“They’re calling you a traitor for being with me?” He hears himself ask. 

Garazeb’s smile slips. He grunts, clearly anguished, before he  hides  turns back to the wall, bends down and picks the sponge up from the bucket. From there, he continues his work of scrubbing the house clean. 

“It doesn’t say anything about that, mate.”    
“Regardless, it’s pretty obvious.” 

An uncomfortable silence stretches between them. The fact that Garazeb doesn’t want to talk about it is clear as day, and yet Alexsandr finds himself pressing on. 

“Why would you try to hide this from me?” 

This time, the silence goes on for so long that Alexsandr thinks that he won’t get a reply at all. Then, finally, Garazeb mumbles: 

“I didn’t want ya’ to worry.” 

“I’m always worried about you.” 

Alexsandr watches him work for a while, before he picks up a sponge of his own and starts to scrub a big, ugly  **JUSTICE** off the wall. Slowly, a plan begins to formulate in his mind.    
Later that same day, while Garazeb is sitting in another one of his political meetings with the high council of Lira San, Alexsandr, that’s still filled with that same, cold determination from before, walks into the office room to glare them all down. 

“‘Sandr, what are ya’-” Garazeb begins, but before he’s been able to finish the sentence, the human cuts him off. 

“My name is Alexsandr Kallus.” He says, addressing the lasat men and women gathered before him on the holotransmitter. “I’m a former special agent, employed by the Imperial Security Bureau, who took part in the genocide on Lasan as one of the Empire’s commanding officers. Now I demand that you put me before trial, for my crimes against your people, and that you enact whatever justice you may seem fit upon me.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the wonderful comments you left on the last chapter! I hope you'll enjoy this one just as much. :D
> 
> I'm posting a bit early today because I've got plans with my partner (who just turned 24!!) this afternoon and I want to spend all of my energy finishing chapter 16 (that's ALMOST done) in the evening. In semi-related me-news: my internship has been postponed for a week on account of covid, so I'm planning to spend this sudden mini-vacation writing. Hopefully I'll have the time + energy to finish both chapter 17 AND my Sabine/Ketsu-contribution for femslash february.
> 
> Wish me luck ;) and may the Force be with you <33

“Captain Alexsandr Kallus of the rebel alliance,” came the booming, commanding voice of Lira San’s Queen, her words being translated into basic by the same etiquette droid as last time. She was sitting upon her elevated throne in the hall where they’d had their feast only days before, gazing down at the human with a bored expression on her face. The twins were still with her, even for this, but not even the sight of the two children made her appear soft. If anything, their presence made her seem more intimidating: like a mother fyrnock protecting her young. “do you have any idea how much time and energy your friend Orellios spent convincing us _not_ to put you before trial?” She gestured towards the gathered crowd around her. He recognized ambassador Royot among them, as well as professor Darjed and the little carrot-headed lasat taking notes by the throne’s foot. 

“This is my wish.” 

“Very well. You stand before us today, charged with war crimes during the Genocide of Lasan. What say you?”   
“Guilty, your highness.” 

“That is irrelevant. I assure you that everyone present is already convinced of your ‘guilt’ - that’s not how things work around here, captain Kallus.” The Queen sighed. “First you will give a full testimony to the events during and after Lasan, by answering the questions of those gathered here with us today. Then we will decide upon an appropriate way for you to make your amends. Have I made myself clear?”   
“Yes, your highness.” 

“Excellent. Then let us proceed.” 

“Are ya’ sure ya’ wanna do this, ‘Sandr?” Garazeb asks, looking him over with something tentative in his eyes. 

They’re in the training room, wooden staffs in their hands, and Alexsandr is acutely aware of the fact that Garazeb has been absolutely _furious_ with him ever since he convinced the council to put him before a trial.   
Some of that anger seems to have melted away in the moment, though. Now, he’s looking frustratingly careful, like he’s afraid that he’ll hurt Alexsandr, or that Alexsandr will fall apart hurt himself. The look only manages to fuel his irritation. 

“I’m sure.” He says, raising the staff. “Now, don’t hold back.” 

Garazeb gets into position. The doubt fades in pace with his movements, replaced by that same anger that’s been brewing just beneath the surface of him for days now. 

“Alright.” He all but growls, making the fine hairs of Alexsandr’s arms stand on edge. “I won’t.” 

“What did you do for the Empire?” Professor Darjed asked him, back in the throne room. This time, he spoke in lasan, probably to show his allegiance with the others. 

“I was an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau, operating under the number ISB-021. The ISB is a law-enforcement and intelligence agency of the Galactic Empire. It’s charged with matters of internal state security and ensuring the loyalty of citizens to the Empire. We…” He halted, unsure of whether to go on or not. He didn’t believe that his actions or past ways of thinking were defendable, but he felt indebted to the memory of the friends he grew up with, the stormtroopers he commanded and to his brother. In the end, he decided to speak up for them, if not for himself. “We truly believed in our cause. That we were making the galaxy a better place, by bringing order to it. It is what we were indoctrinated to think, since we were children.” 

The secretary scribbled furiously in her notebook. What was her name again… Cynt? Symb? Alexsandr struggled to recall. 

“What happened on Lasan?” Another of the councilmembers asked him. “And what was your part in it?” 

He steeled himself, layering his heart beneath another coat of ice. He’d made a promise to himself beforehand, to stay objective, and not to break apart. 

Still, he struggled. 

“Lasan…” he said, unsure of how much to share and where to begin. “Lasan was-” 

They move in circles around each other, sizing each other up, waiting for the other to strike. 

Alexsandr notes the firm grip that Zeb’s got around the training staff, the way that the fur down his neck and shoulder stand on end and the anger sparkling in his green eyes, and knows that he won’t have to wait long. Out of the two of them, he’s always been the patient one. 

The tip of Garazeb’s left ear twitch. That’s all the warning Alexsandr gets before the man strikes. The wood splinters where the staffs collide, and Alexsandr feels the force of the others blow reverberate like an echo through his body. Muscles aching in protest, he digs his feet into the ground and pushes the lasat back. 

Adrenaline rushing through his body, he dashes to the left, aiming for Garazeb’s- 

“Why did you defect from the Empire?” A tall, elderly lasat woman asked him. 

Alexsandr eyed the little secretary, unsure of whether he should continue as she was still writing down the events on Lasan. After receiving a small, approving nod from the woman, Alexsandr spoke. 

“I defected because…” he stuttered. The truth is that he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer: there’s thousands of different reasons as to why he left, thousands of small events spanning from his first steps into a Republic academy to his final, fateful escape while in orbit over Atollon, that all led to him leaving the Empire for the rebellion. “because… the Empire was making a corpse out of me. As it makes corpses out of everyone and everything that it touches. I didn’t _just_ leave for a cause,” _the rebellion_ “or for a person.” _Zeb_

“I left to save myself, while there was still something left to save. And I joined the rebellion to help the rest of the galaxy in whatever way I could, even if it will just end up stalling the assholes for a while. I left because I didn’t want to be on the Empire’s side, cold and unthinking, when they finally destroy it all in this… fruitless, hateful strive for conformity that they have.” 

“So you believe it to be a lost cause then?” The Queen interjected. “Your rebellion?” 

“I- no, or, I mean-”

Zeb parries Alexsandr’s blow at the very last second, pushing the human away using all 115 kilograms of his weight before going on the offensive once more. 

Alexsandr swirls around the blows of his staff, feeling an adrenaline-induced grin tug at the corner of his lips. Despite his previous annoyance, Garazeb is smiling back. It’s been a long time since they last sparred together like this, and he’s savoring the familiarity of it all. With the easy, flawless way that their movements are flowing around and because of each other, it’s almost like they’re dancing. 

The experience is exhilarating, as always. 

And yet, today, he feels like he needs something else. 

Something **more**. 

“Since your encounter with captain Orrellios on Bahryn, and your enlistment as Fulcrum: what have you done for the rebellion, captain Kallus?” Ambassador Royot asked. 

Garazeb had helped him prepare for this question in advance, making him promise to defend himself even if he didn’t want to. 

“As Fulcrum, I helped a group of young cadets at the Imperial Skystrike Academy defect,” He began, feeling as if he was reciting a script - which, honestly, he pretty much was. “and I helped the Spectres out of a number of traps that were set for them by my colleagues. Once I’d become an official member of the rebellion, I served as a captain in the Alliance’s Massassi Group, and I helped to coordinate the Spectres. Together, we liberated Lothal from the Empire. We’ve been protecting it and its people ever since.” 

The feeling of hunger, of craving something **more** , spurs Alexsandr forward. 

He begins to fight dirty, smacking Garazeb over the fingers and the back of his head, taking each and every opportunity that presents itself to prod at him, until the other man is growling with frustrated anger. 

“Oh, so _that’s_ how we’re playing today, is it?!” The lasat snarls. 

“I told you not to hold back.” 

As their previously smooth, coordinated rhythm turns rough and aggressive, something in Alexsandr fires up and comes alive. Garazeb’s strikes become increasingly heavy and desperate, and the human makes sure to meet them all, momentarily addicted to the pain of his muscles as they strain against the larger man. 

Alexsandr finds himself grinning once more. 

Only, this time, Garazeb doesn’t smile back. 

“Is there any chance that you, in the future, will reveal the location of Lira San to the Empire or to any other enemies of the lasat?” The members of the council had asked him. 

“No.” He’d responded. 

Alexsandr tumbles to the side, dodging a blow by the edge of his hair, sweaty, heart thundering and feeling painfully, wonderfully **alive**.   
He rolls back into a standing position in one, fast, smooth motion, and then he’s back on Garazeb again, forcing the lasat to go on the defensive as he hammers blows towards his body with the training staff. 

The man grunts while Alexsandr grins, forcing him into a literal corner. 

“I told you,” The human sobs (why is he sobbing? when did it start?) “not to hold back on me!” 

As the tears well in his eyes, momentarily blinding him, Zeb takes the opportunity to strike. 

With a frustrated growl, he pushes his heavy body off from against the wall, into Alexsandr. 

For a moment, everything is dark.

Back in the throne room, the suns had been shining through the windows behind them, illuminating the floral depiction of Ashla, the Queen and her children, the secretary and the council, in a bright, green light as they looked down at Alexsandr. 

“Do you swear to serve and protect our Queen and her people, for as long as you are a resident of Lira San?” Another faceless, useless, nameless member of the court had asked.   
“I do.” He’d answered, even though the words felt like poison on his tongue. A part of him was still in awe, and a lot of fear, of great, indisputable authorities. 

After being dismissed for what felt like hours while the council deliberated his punishment, Alexsandr was summoned back into the throne room with dread growing like a sickness in his mind. 

The eyes of the jury seemed cold and empty as they stared him down, devoid of sympathy and respect. Despite his insistence on going through with this, Alexsandr felt a sudden, soul piercing stab of regret at the thought of Garazeb and all that they might have had together, if only he’d kept his mouth shut and gone along with the way he’d arranged things for them. He thought about the dresses in his closet, about watching the suns go down from the balcony with Zeb at his side, about the tea they’ve been brewing and the holovid’s they’ve been falling asleep to together, and even though all of these beautiful things were yet to be lost to him, he mourned them. 

"You should be grateful, captain Kallus.” the Queen finally broke the tense silence of the room. “There are plenty of people gathered here today that would have liked to see you locked away for the rest of your life. But we have no prisons on Lira San, and we're not about to adopt the ugly habits of the rest of the galaxy. On Lira San... we do things differently.” 

Alexsandr frowned. The words were coming to him as if he was laying at the bottom of a pool: obscure and, seemingly, very far away. 

“So instead, professor Darjed and ambassador Royot have agreed to take you beneath their wings.

Captain Alexsandr Kallus of the rebel alliance: for your crimes against the lasat-people, we, the council, hereby sentence you to serve three months' community service at San Lira university, as well as six months worth of education in our language. I'm looking forward to conversing with you without the need for this pesky droid."

"How rude!" The droid complained. 

“Simp, my dear," The Queen smirked. "show the human what you’ve been working on.” 

The little secretary at her feet grinned, before holding up the notes that she’d been scribbling so ambitiously on throughout the afternoon. On the pages were three, poorly drawn versions of him: one where she’d made him look like his limbs were made of skinny, overcooked noodles, another where he was flexing some huge, bulging muscles, and another where he appeared to be a particularly frowny lasat. 

Alexsandr stared at the drawings. 

“Wonderful.” The Queen exclaimed. “Meeting adjourned, everyone!” 

Once his vision returns to him, Alexsandr finds himself laying flat on his back on the floor.   
Now that some of the adrenaline has left him, most of his body is sore from overexerted muscles and a collection of fresh bruises colouring his limbs. 

Garazeb is glaring down at him, his face twisted in frustrated anger. He’s got Alexsandr’s staff in one hand, and his own in the other. 

“Ya’ happy now?!” He growls. 

Alexsandr’s gaze darts, quickly, between the look on Zeb’s face and the weapons in his hands.   
Slowly, a small ember of that same, addictive heat turns on inside him. 

“Hit me.” He breathes. 

“What?”   
“I _said_ …” Alexsandr props himself up with his arms, feeling the grin on his face twist into a snarl as the heat fuels into frustrated, desperate **anger**. “HIT me!” 

The training staffs’ falls out of Zeb’s hands. 

As they come falling to the floor on either side of Alexsandr’s head, landing with thuds that echo around the room, the last of the heat in him is snuffed out. 

In the end, he’s left with nothing but the cold. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” Garazeb says, low voice laced with poison. 

Slowly, Alexsandr makes his way into a sitting position, grimacing slightly as the pain is settling into his body completely. His mind is still reeling with all of the events of the day: that awful joke of a trial, the way he’d sobbed the entire lonely way home, and now this. Truth be told, _he’s_ not even sure about what he’s doing.

“Oh yeah?” He says, finally, looking up at the lasat before him with a self-deprecating little smile. “And what’s that?” 

“You’re trying to make ME punish ya’, since the council wouldn’t.” Garazeb snarls. 

“And why wouldn’t you?!” 

“Because that’s not what ya’ NEED, ‘Sandr! And it’s not something that I wanna do, either!” 

“Well it’s what I deserve.” 

The lasat groans, running his hands over his face in frustration. 

“I’ve already told ya, I don’t care about all that!” 

“Well, maybe you should…” Alexsandr pouts, breaking eye-contact to glare at the floor. He knows that he’s being childish right now, knows that he’s being selfish and self-sabotaging. But even as the worst of the anger abates from him, he can’t help but feel frustrated. “I just… want to do right by you. I want to do right by your people. But I don’t know HOW and I feel like you and the council are stopping me, by acting like I’m- I’m…!” 

“Like you’re what?” 

“like I’m BROKEN!” He snarls, glaring back up at Garazeb, that’s looking at him with an aggravatingly blank expression on his face. “Like you’re too afraid that I’ll fall apart at any moment to give me the punishment that I deserve!” 

The lasat releases another long, shuddering sigh. 

“I’m telling ya’, ‘Sandr, this: your stay here, the jury’s sentence, hell even the way we took ya’ in as one of the Spectres after you’d been hurting and chasing us around for all those years, ain’t about what ya’ deserve. It’s about what ya’ can do to help make things better. Now you’ve been given a chance to help, to learn and do better for yerself: how would punishing ya’ serve the lasats any better than that? I can tell ya’ right now that… well it wouldn’t serve _me_ any better, that’s for sure. I-ah, well, I… I _like_ having ya’ around,” Alexsandr’s heart skips a beat. All of a sudden, Garazeb seems flustered: he’s blushing and rubbing a hand through the fur on his neck. Despite himself, the human feels himself blushing as well. “in case that wasn’t obvious.”   
Ears burning with embarrassment, Alexsandr diverts his gaze back to the floor, trying to work through the confused jumble of emotions in his mind. As the silence between him and Garazeb grows, seemingly expanding the distance between them with every second, self-loathing coats another layer of ice around Alexsandr’s heart. 

It’s a familiar, almost comforting feeling, one that comes to him a lot easier than the fleeting, deceitful embers of hope that Garazeb keeps trying to breathe life to. 

“A couple of good deeds doesn't cancel out a lifetime of horrible ones.” He breathes, finally, making the lasat do a double take. 

“I- I just-” He stutters in response, clearly agitated. “I don’t know how to- UGH, yer so fucking STUBBORN!” 

The lasat drops, abruptly, to the floor, making Alexsandr jump in surprise. He watches as Garazeb hides his face behind his hands, and every time the human sees him tug at his own fur in stress, something in his heart tugs right back. 

“Please, try to see this from my perspective!” Alexsandr pleads. “The trial was a _joke_ ! They’d obviously decided on my so-called ‘punishment’ before I even set foot in the throne room! And still, they made me lay my life story out before them like it was nothing but the day’s entertainment. It was _humiliating!_ One of them made me believe that she was taking notes, while she was actually drawing-” he gags. “caricatures.” 

“I understand that today’s been hard on ya’,” Zeb responds, slowly and a bit muffled from behind his hands. “but ya’ can’t bring that shit in _here_ . Ya’ can’t take it out on me.” Alexsandr watches as the lasat curls into himself, seemingly shrinking before his very eyes. It’s like he’s shielding himself. From _him._ The realization shoots through him like lightning. 

“It’s not fair.” Garazeb breathes, barely audible through the heavy racing of Alexsandr’s heart. 

“I’m sorry.” 

He’d promised himself. He’d _promised_ himself never to be the cause of Zeb’s pain again, and yet here they are: sitting together, yet alone, on the floor, as the walls of their domestic fantasy crumbles around them because of him. 

And then, suddenly, realisation rattles through Alexsandr. Maybe he’s been right all of this time, and he wasn’t meant to be happy. Or maybe he’s just never given happiness a proper chance. 

Slowly, he disentangles himself from his spot on the floor, swiping the training staffs aside in the process. He sits up properly, on his knees, and dusts himself off briefly before scooching his way over to Garazeb. 

“Zeb?” He breathes, placing a tentative hand on the others thigh. His heart is pounding so loud in his ears, he can’t even hear himself think. Slowly, the hands fall away from Garazeb’s face, and the air leaves Alexsandr’s lungs in a breathless little huff as, finally, their eyes meet once more. The lasat looks so _sad_ , he wants nothing but to make the pain in him go away. 

“‘Sandr?” 

As Alexsandr shuffles closer, Zeb’s gaze begin to flicker between his eyes and his mouth. Something even more fragile enters his expression then, until the human can’t resist cupping his face in his hands. As he massages his fingers into the lasat’s beard, the other man closes his eyes, the breath leaving him in a sigh that tingles over Alexsandr’s lips. 

“Please tell me,” the human hears himself whispering. “if this isn’t what you want.” 

“‘Sandr,” the lasat gives him a shaky little smile. Then he leans in closer, putting his forehead against Alexsandr’s in an impossibly tender gesture. “you are _everything_ that I want right now.” 

“Nghk-” is the only thing the human manages to get out, before one of them, he’s not sure who, bridge the divide, and they’re kissing. 

The fire in Alexsandr roars back to life. “ _Oh. So_ ** _this_** _is what was missing”_ he thinks, before Garazeb wraps him in his arms and deepens the kiss, making all other thoughts escape him. The lasat’s lips leave a tingling trail of embers wherever they go on Alexsandr’s skin, leaving him shaking with excitement as his hands travel across Zeb’s face, down his shoulders and into the fur at the back of his neck.

Kissing Garazeb, and discovering all the ways in which their bodies intertwine so perfectly against each other feels both alien and strangely familiar at once. On the one hand, he’s enveloped by the comfort of the lasat’s wonderful, distinct smell, while enclosed in his warm arms like the numerous times he’s woken up to find them snuggling in their sleep. On the other, the feeling of his claws as they press against the skin on Alexsandr's back, and the absolute magic done to him by Garazeb’s thick, coarse tongue as it laps at his neck and into his mouth, make his stomach bottom out. 

Kissing Garazeb feels exciting, and terrifying, and absolutely, breathtakingly, wonderful. 

But above all: Alexsandr finds that kissing Garazeb feels **right**. 

Then, as sudden as it began, the lasat pulls back and away from him. 

Before Alexsandr’s gotten a grip on what’s happening, the other man is on his feet and avoiding eye-contact. 

“Garazeb?”   
“Sorry, I-” the lasat stutters. Watching him draw a long, soldiering breath, Alexsandr feels the warmth inside of him dissipate into something very cold and broken. Finally, Zeb looks at him, his eyes swimming with that same pain as before, but amplified. “I shouldn’t have done that.” 

“Why?”   
“Why? _Why_ ?!” He laughs, but the sound is wrong, twisted with grief. “Because I’m your **regret** , remember, Kallus?” The human starts, feeling as if he’s been slapped. “And you’re emotional, and ya’ don’t… don’t actually want this. Ya’ don’t want me. Ya’ want what I represent.” 

“Oh?” Alexsandr gathers his legs to him, using them as a makeshift shield against the other. He’s getting really tired of people telling him what he needs, and what he wants. “And what’s that?”   
“Redemption. And I’m sorry, but that’s not- it’s not something that I can give ya’. No matter how much I want to. I already forgave ya’ for Lasan, Alexsandr. You know that. But that won’t ever be enough for ya’, because ya’ can’t seem to be able to forgive _yourself_ . And I **want** to help ya’, I want to help ya’ _so bad_ that I left Lothal behind for it, but if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that ya’ can’t actually help someone that doesn’t want to be helped.” 

Alexsandr tries to speak. He tries to tell Garazeb that he _does_ want him, that he’s loved him for ages, but the words stick in his throat. Looking at the determination on the other’s face, he’s not sure they would make a difference anyway. 

So, he hides his face behind his knees, shrinking into himself as the tears burn hot trails down his cheeks. 

When he finally looks back up, Garazeb is long gone.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines day!   
> Lets celebrate together with an entirely unromantic, stupidly tragic flashback chapter! 
> 
> Chapter warnings: Racist Kallus, minor character death

**1 and a half year before the Genocide:**

It’s been a long six months for special agent Kallus. 

Ever since he took over command of military station Delta, the local’s have made his job increasingly difficult. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) the Empire’s increasingly draconian attempts to suppress the once peaceful protests that are plaguing Lasan’s cities, they’ve escalated into all-out riotiong. The savages have, in their blind rage, begun to loot their own cities, destroying lasat-owned property whenever they can’t get their strange, four-clawed hands on Imperials or members of the royal guard, who are facing just as much public outrage. 

People on all sides of the conflict are getting hurt, sometimes even killed, because of this mindless, barbaric violence that seems to come so naturally to lasat’s. If only they’d understand that the Empire is here to  _ help  _ them, to bring order to their civilisation and protect them from destroying themselves (they obviously need it). But, the more time Kallus spends on Lasan, the more his hopes for a peaceful transition of power weakens. There is no helping these savages, unless they’re willing to help themselves. And now there’s rumors spreading that the Queen is considering a repeal from her agreement with the Empire. If that happens, they’ll have no choice but to go to war.

“Despite our best attempts, we were unable to locate the fugitive’s current location,” His advisors tell him through the holopad, during their seventh meeting of the day. “but we know that she is on Lasan. And, thanks to our spies, we know what her plans are.” 

Kallus, who is sitting by the desk in his office, does his best to seem alert and attentive. His head is pounding with a headache that’s been refusing to let up for the past three weeks, and despite his attempts to keep his surroundings neat and orderly, his desk drawers are stacked so full of unfinished paperwork that he can barely close them. To top it all off, he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in what feels like ages. 

“The Wookie will be speaking tonight, at the Garden of Statues, at 1800. Sign the paper, and my men will eliminate the weed before it’s had the chance to take root.” 

He stares down at the paperwork before him. 

One signature, and someone’s life will be terminated, wiped from existence like a pesky fly. 

One signature, and thousands of others lives may be saved, as this particular Kashyyyk-fugitive’s poisonous, dangerous lies never have the chance to inspire any war. 

To ensure order in the galaxy, sacrifices must be made. 

Kallus’ mind wanders, briefly, to the destructive power of the T-7 ion disruptors. Far from everyone in Imperial command are as hesitant to use them as he is, and as the discord on Lasan increases, the weapons advocates are growing in numbers.

There simply  **can not** be a war on Lasan. 

And so, Kallus signs the order. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Asjak is howling. 

Everywhere around Garazeb, people are screaming and running, while honor guards and Imperial stormtroopers alike shout their orders and make their arrests, trying desperately to regain some sense of control. Their bodies are shapeless blurs to Garazeb, their words mindless gibberish. All he can see is the statue of Ashla, standing tall and proud at the very center of the Garden of Statues. All that he can hear is the howling of the anooba -  _ her  _ anooba, sent with Llorna by their father, to keep her safe. Arik is another, dark blur before him, leading the charge through the crowd. 

Somewhere along the way, he passes a toppled statue of the Queen. The statue has a bo-rifle in her hands, a convor on her right shoulder and graffiti sprayed over her face, branding her a traitor. The way she’s laying in the grass, tiny pink flowers caressing her marble cheeks, makes it look like she’s sleeping. Or dead. 

The thought makes him stumble, overrun by a momentary wave of terror. He stops to catch his breath, to stop himself from crying or screaming or laying down on the ground next to the toppled Queen to rot: _it would only be fitting_ , he thinks, _or at least Llorna would think so. She’d get a good laugh over it._ She never wanted him to be an honor guardsman to begin with, and ever since the Empire began their occupation of Lasan her criticism of his career choice has only grown more frequent and biting. But she doesn’t understand, he can’t just _leave_ : becoming an honor guard captain has been his dream for as long as he can remember, there’s _so many_ expectations on him and, besides, he’s seen what happens to the guards that dares question the Queen: their entire families are ostracised, shamed and thrown to the street. Garazeb could never do that to their father. 

Another howl pierces through the air, joining the first one.  _ Arik.  _   
Just like that, Zeb’s mind blanks. He looks up at the statue of Ashla before him and makes his way towards her, pushing lasat’s and stormtroopers aside with a mumbled reference to his work. 

He finds Llorna lying by the deitie’s feet, her body stretched out in the grass like the toppled statue of the Queen further back. There’s a fresh, smoldering laser-bolt wound in her chest and her big, green eyes are still open. Asjak is lying next to her, gently nuzzling the side of her face while Arik howls and whines. Sitting on her other side is a Wookie, who’s clutching Llorna’s hand to her chest. 

Garazeb takes a moment to study his sister’s form: this presumed constant in his life, his role model, his best friend, now nothing but a strange, lifeless mirror of himself. She looks just like their mother did, on the day that  _ she  _ threw herself in front of a laserbolt and died. The realization rocks through him, and suddenly, he’s glad for the emptiness that seems to have enveloped him: if he wasn’t so numb, he might have laid down next to her in the grass and never gotten back up again. Instead, he reaches down and closes her eyes, before gathering her limp form up in his arms. 

“C’mon,” he says to the Wookie, that voice what he can only assume are words of protest in her strange, hoarse language. “I’m getting ya’ out of here. Both of ya’.” 

Somehow, despite the panicked crowds, the stormtroopers and the honor guards roaming all over the place, they make it all the way back home without being stopped even once. 

As Garazeb places his sister on the foot of their father’s sickbed, the numbness in him begin to fade.

“Let me hold her.” Their father begs, and as Garazeb places Llorna’s limp, cold hand in the old man’s, something dark inside of him swells and sticks in his throat like mud. “Who did this to her, Garazeb?” Their father asks, voice brittle with grief. “Who did this to my little girl?” 

“I don’t know.” He says, and suddenly the weight of his body is impossible to bear. He falls to his knees on the floor, running the events of the demonstration over in his head, again and again, but the only thing he remembers is the sound of that  _ shot  _ and then the howling, that neverending, infernal howling that pierced through his body as if he was the one who had been fired upon. The murderer could have been someone in the crowd, or a stormtrooper, or- or an honor guard. The thought makes a shiver of dread run through him, and then he’s sobbing, clutching the covers of the bed while  their  _ his  _ **her** father runs a trembling hand through the fur on the back of his neck. “I don’t know.” 

The anooba’s come up to him, resting their massive heads on his knees. 

“She saved me.” The Wookie speaks up, in heavily accented lasan, from the back of the room. Zeb stiffens. He’d forgotten that she was here. “She saw the danger, and pushed me aside.”   
“But… why?” Their father questions, and suddenly, Garazeb understands the resentment that fueled Llorna forward, every time she thought about their mother sacrificing herself for the Queen. How ironic that she’d die in the very same way: strong and stupidly brave, protecting someone that she believes in. 

“For the same reason that the Empire is trying to have me killed. For what I have to say.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“My name is Dhayhhe.” The Wookie says, her strange words being translated into lasan by the etiquette droid employed by the royal council. “Before the invasion of Kashyyyk, I used to work for our republic ambassador, as their assistant and, at times, their translator. Now, I’m a fugitive of war.”    
“What is your business here on Lasan?” The Queen questions, tapping her immaculately manicured claws against the wood of her throne. There’s something very dangerous in her lavender eyes, making Garazeb feel almost sick with nerves. With tensions rising all around Lasan, sneaking Dhayhhe into the palace had been a risky move. “If it is amnesty you seek, you’ve come to the wrong place. The Lasats are loyal to the Empire.” 

“With all due respect, your highness: I think the people of Lasan disagree.”   
_ Karabast, that was the  _ **_wrong_ ** _ thing to say.  _ Garazeb cringe, as a collected murmur of voices wraps over the council. He can feel the cold, disapproving stares from his fellow guards burning into the back of his neck.  _ What if they killed Llorna? _ Fear makes his skin prickle, even as the stubborn, burning anger that motivated him to take Dhayhhe here in the first place courses through his heart.  _ If they did, they’ll probably kill me next. _ The Queen glares down at the Wookie, who seems to realize that she’s made a misstep. 

“But this is a futile argument, because loyalties don’t matter in the end.” She hurries to say. “My people were devoted members of the republic for centuries, but that didn’t stop the Empire from destroying us. When they first came, after the dissolution of the Jedi Order… The Emperor ordered our forests to be cut down for lumber and food, to feed his Imperial Army - the very same army that you’ve invited to your cities and into your halls, your honor. When we refused, his stormtroopers burned our sacred trees. And when we fought back, he established a blockade around Kashyyyk, stopping all trade and communication. We Wookies are warriors, but there is no enemy more wicked than hunger. As we were starving, the Empire began their  _ real  _ hunt for us: turning us against each other and taking us captive, as slaves, to feed their machines and dig in their mines, both on Kashyyyk and off-world, far from our homes and our families. And now I’m afraid that he’ll do the same to Lasan, and to the Lasats, if given the chance. Or worse.” 

Slowly, something in the Queen shifts. Her hands cease their tapping, and she sits up straight on her throne, giving Dhayhhe a contemplative look-over. The Wookie is standing firm, meeting her Queenship’s gaze with just as much fire in her eyes. 

“Very well, Dhayhhe of Kashyyyk. State your case, and we, the council, will decide how to proceed: with you, your  _ champion _ : captain Orrelios,” her eyes flicker to him briefly, making him flush. “and our Imperial friends, who may or may not have... overstayed their welcome.” 

Garazeb takes a deep breath, attempting to calm his rapidly beating heart. 

Watching Dhayhhe, the confident way she carries herself, and listening to the eloquence of her words, he finds himself thinking that this might just work, no, that this  _ has  _ to work. 

For herself, and for him. For his people, and his planet. But most of all, for Llorna: to make sure that her sacrifice was not in vain. 

Llorna did, after all and  **very** much true to older sibling fashion, always love to prove him wrong. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *YEETS this chapter full of domestic fluff at you as an apology for the last couple of SUPER DEPRESSING ones

The evening following their fight in the training room, Alexsandr makes them both dinner. He finds the act of it therapeutic, as it gives him the space to work through his thoughts while he’s creating something real, something physical, something that will nourish and, hopefully, taste good enough to be enjoyable. Tonight, he tries his hands on a simple pasta-dish that was served at the feast. The final product doesn’t turn out quite the way he imagined, but Garazeb doesn’t seem to mind - he all but licks the plate clean, making a small flicker of pride alight in Alexsandr even as he fights against the memories of what that tongue did to  _ him _ , hours earlier. 

They  **don’t** talk about it. 

After dinner, Zeb swipes the dirty dishes out of Alexsandr’s hands and does them for him without a word. The following day, the lasat joins him and Chava while they’re making lunch. 

It becomes a new ritual, adding to their steadily growing collection of domestic habits, and Alexsandr would be lying if he didn’t admit to it being one of his favorites. He’s never had this kind of quiet, homely relationship with anyone else before, one where he’s able to just exist without any pressing demands or expectations on him, and so the human treasures it: every wordless exchange and execution of their chores around the kitchen, every accidental (or not so accidental) brush of their hands, every moment their eyes meet and Garazeb lights up. 

Chava begins to sit these cooking sessions out, watching them instead from her self-designated spot by the counter while providing commentary about their skills. The old lasat woman keeps showering Alexsandr with praise, which the human finds absolutely mortifying, while also complaining about everything from Garazeb’s posture to his tendency to oversalt. And yet, despite the criticism, she’s all too happy to partake in their results.    
In these lighthearted, domestic moments, it might have been easy to forget about the trial, about the kiss and the fight that followed it - if the memory of Garazeb’s touch, of his words and the hurt in him, the hurt caused  _ by him _ , weren’t seared into Alexsandr’s skin like a tattoo. 

And the trial definitely happened: it’s made each and every day into a countdown for Alexsandr until it's time to begin his community service. 

“But you’ve got the weekends off, right?” Zeb asks, practically fussing all over Alexsandr as the human is making himself ready to go to the university. “Karabast, they can’t make ya’ work  _ every  _ day of the week! That would just be cruel.”    
“Garazeb, I’m ex-military.” Alexsandr scoffs, amused despite the nervosity gnawing at his insides. “Even  _ if  _ they made me work every day of the week, which they don’t, don’t give me that look, it wouldn’t be anything that I’m not already used to. Actually, the work hours are ridiculous - it’s only four hours a day! I’m in more danger of being bored to death than the opposite.”    
“Yeah, but then ya’ got yer studies when ya’ get home, right? Three hours a day with Andain?” 

“Which brings my total working hours to seven. That’s nothing compared to my workload while I was with the Empire, or even with the rebellion, Garazeb.” 

“Do ya’ get any breaks? When are ya’ supposed to have your lunch? You should join a union, are there any unions-?”    
“Garazeb, you are being ridiculous. I’ll be  _ fine _ , I’ve- oh” 

He’s hugging him. 

Zeb is hugging him, enveloping Alexsandr in his firm arms as he hides his face in the crook of his neck, and suddenly the human is afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to  _ breathe  _ in case it breaks the spell that the other man seems to be under. 

Slowly, very slowly, Alexsandr relaxes his body, melting into the comforting heat of the other as he plants his forehead on Garazeb’s shoulder. Feeling the lasat’s breath ghosting across his skin, he fights back a sudden and very much unwelcome sob. What would he think of him, if Alexsandr started crying just from being hugged? 

“I can’t even begin to tell ya’ how happy I am that ye’re okay.” The lasat mumbles against his skin, voice wavering dangerously. “when they drove ya’ away for court, I can’t even- I was _so scared_ , ‘Sandr. Ya’ can’t _do that_ to me-”   
“I know, I’m sorry, I know-”   
“No, I- It’s gonna be okay, ‘Sandr.” Garazeb pulls back, just enough for the two of them to make eye contact, and Alexsandr does his best to swallow around the big ugly lump of regret in his throat. _I’m sorry I hurt you,_ He wants to say. _or if I ever made you feel undesirable. You really are the only thing I want right now._ The memory of Garazeb’s words shocks through him, but they don’t make it past his lips. Slowly, the corners of the lasat’s mouth twitch into a shaky, but sincere, smile that Alexsandr can’t help but reciprocate. It’s impossible not to when Garazeb is around. “We’re gonna be okay.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Unsurprisingly, community service is horrible. 

But it’s not horrible in any of the usual, backbreaking, physical laborious ways that one might otherwise associate with a punishment: but in the soul crushing, aggravatingly dull way where Alexsandr, after hours of correcting grammar papers for the professors’ class on basic, of printing hundreds of fliers for some student union and laminating thousands of his flashcards, all while stuck in a dusty, dark little office with the lasat, who, by the way,  **won’t shut up** for even a second, wants to bang his head against the wall until he’s made himself an exit to flee out of, or at the very least, rendered himself unconscious. 

But the real torture begins during professor Darjed’s “Advanced Anthropology”-class. 

The class begins, quite predictably, with the excitable little lasat parading him around the room like some exotic pet or, perhaps more accurately, a particularly interesting science-experiment. Once all of the attendants (a ragtag little group of fifteen or so young-adult lasats) have had their chance to poke and prod at him, professor Darjed place him before the chalkboard (Alexsandr has never been so grateful for his cane before, as the pain in his leg is killing him) and presents today’s agenda. Today’s subject: human culture. 

“and that garment you’re wearing…” The professor says, peering down at Alexsandr’s favorite white pencil skirt with a strange look in his, admittedly, already somewhat strange eyes. He’s talking in basic, and Alexsandr is surprised to find that his students follow along without an etiquette droid to translate. “is that not meant to be worn by the females of your species?”    
“I- yes I suppose.” Alexsandr blush, subtly trying to tug the fabric further down his legs. “It’s called a skirt.”    
“How fascinating! How come you’re wearing it now? You  _ are  _ male, correct?”    
The blush grows, burning its way down his chest and up to the tip of his ears as a classroom full of young lasat’s stare him down. After everything Garazeb had said about lasat culture, and after everything he’d seen while on the feast, he’d never expected to be questioned about his clothes  _ here _ . 

“I’m male, yes. And I suppose… I suppose that I was inspired by your people. By your androgynity.” 

“Interesting, very interesting… class, do you have any other questions?”    
Several hands are raised. Professor Darjed gives the word to a young lasat-woman with thick glasses and a curled mustache. 

“Is it true that males are considered the ‘superior’ sex among humans?” She says, in perfect basic. 

“That’s… a very old, outdated belief. The Empire may be conservative, but today, human women have the same rights as any man.”    
“In theory or in practice?” She presses on, tapping her pen against the papers in her notebook. “Were there, for example, a lot of women at the imperial academy?”    
Alexsandr thinks about his old friends Alyssa and Neo, feeling a stab of nostalgia run through him as he tries to recollect their faces. As much as he struggles, they’re nothing but a painful haze of shadows and feelings to him now - ghosts of their shared experiences, instead of individuals in their own right. 

“I had as many female classmates as I had male.”    
“And how many of these women advanced to higher positions? If males and females are equal in your culture, then it’s only logical that half of the Empire’s top generals should be female, right?” 

“I-” he thinks back to his superiors, trying to remember if he’d known or at least known  _ of  _ anyone that wasn’t a man. There was governor Pryce, of course, and he’d heard rumors about one general Tessala Corvae, but looking back Alexsandr realize that they’re outliers. “there were… a few.” 

“It sounds to me, Captain Kallus,” Professor Darjed cuts in. “as if human women either face discrimination in the workplace, as my student suggested, or as if they’re less adept to command than their male coworkers, which you seem to imply. So why is it that you’ve decided to present yourself to us here today, wearing the clothing of your presumably weaker sex?” 

“I- uhm- That’s  _ not  _ what I was implying, professor-”    
What follows is a class discussion that spans the rest of the hour, where the students take turns theorizing about his manner of dress using more or less thinly veiled insults. Even as Alexsandr is sitting down, trying to burn a hole through the floor again, he’s gotta admit that there’s some creative ideas floating around. 

“He’s obviously got mommy-issues,” one of them says. “I bet that’s his mom’s old clothes. Are humans raised by their moms, by the way?” 

Alexsandr scoffs.  _ As if mother would wear something this form-fitting. Or raise me.  _   
“I think it’s trauma-related. He’s going through some sort of a identity-crisis, triggered by the shock of arriving on Lira San!” Another one says.  _ Or maybe I just like the way it makes my legs look,  _ he thinks, rolling his eyes. 

“Maybe he’s trying to appear non-threatening! By adapting to our customs he’s looking to curry favor with our people.”  _ I should have made them build me a jail, just to throw me in it. Anything would be better than  _ **_this._ **

After four horrible hours at the university, Alexsandr is taken home in one of the lasat’s self-driving vehicles. His leg hurts almost as much as the stress-headache that’s pounding against his temples, he’s emotionally exhausted, feeling bad about himself and his clothing in general and his stomach is absolutely screaming with hunger. The only thing he wants to do is to go home, get himself into some fresh  masculine  clothes and make lunch with Garazeb, before it’s time for his first lesson with (he shudders) Royot. 

You’d think that it was a simple enough to do-list: 

  * go home [ ]
  * change clothes [ ]
  * make lunch [ ]



but since everything and everyone in the universe seems to be conspiring against Alexsandr today, it simply isn’t to be. 

There’s a ship parked by the side of the house, right next to the Ghost. 

The vehicle is built for interplanetary travel and, based on the two cannon-towers that are strapped to the back of it, battle. The sight of it fills Alexsandr with a distinctly  **bad** feeling. 

Stepping into the entrance to his house, and seeing the absolute MOUNTAIN of luggage thrown haphazardly all over the place, the feeling accumulates. There’s multiple voices coming from the kitchen, and Alexsandr  _ really  _ doesn’t want to go in there, tired and in pain and absolutely  _ sick  _ with interacting with people, but he’s also going weak with hunger, and the kitchen is where the food is. 

So, he gathers his wits to him, wipes some invisible dust off his clothes and heads in the direction of the voices, into the kitchen where he’s met by an arm full of 

“Chopper!” 

The astromech beeps at him, clearly upset even though  _ he  _ was the one that ran into  _ him _ , and Alexsandr manages to  _ just  _ avoid getting electrocuted by dancing to the side. 

“Hello, Kallus.” A warm, familiar voice says, and before Alexsandr knows it he’s being pulled into a hug by his favorite rebel pilot in the galaxy (and one of the few people he knows whose company doesn’t drain him): 

“General Syndulla." 

"Always with the formalities. Please, call me general Hera." She jokes. 

"I didn’t know you were coming?” He pulls back from her, and takes a look around the overcrowded kitchen. Chava is sitting on her usual spot by the counter with little Jacen bouncing in her lap, and Garazeb is standing next to Royot by the stove, where a huge pot full of stew is already simmering. The smell of it makes his stomach rumble, even as the sight fills him with disappointment. There’s something about the way Royot’s got his hand on Garazeb’s shoulder, easy and natural, that doesn’t sit right with him. Besides, he was  _ really  _ looking forward to making lunch together, the thought of it pretty much single handedly got him through the day. 

“We thought that we’d surprise you.” Hera says, before pushing past him with a towel in her hand. She’s in pursuit of Chopper, that’s, apparently, gotten some of the stew on him. Looking down at himself, Alexsandr realizes that the astromech has smeared it all over his white skirt as well. The same white skirt that Hera, apparently, didn’t even bat an eye over him wearing. The thought makes him smile, just a bit. “I figured that I’d never get my ship back unless we came unannounced. Zeb would just hide it on the closest, abandoned moon or something-”    
“I would not!” The lasat argues, using a spoon to flick some stew in her direction.    
“Please,  _ must  _ I remind you of the tie fighter?”    
“Oh yeah,” he chuckles, a nostalgic look in his eyes. “that was  _ fun _ .” 

“My point exactly.” 

Interest peaked, Alexsandr opens his mouth to ask. But before he’s gotten so much as a sound out, Royot’s clenching Garazeb’s shoulder, quietly asking for the others attention.    
“I don’t believe you’ve told me this story,” he says in that aggravatingly smooth, almost rumbling tone of his that makes Alexsandr’s stress-headache return with a vengeance. “how did you come to acquire a tie fighter, of all things?”    
Garazeb gives Royot a big, excited grin, and suddenly Alexsandr doesn’t want to stay and listen, not if it means that he has to watch the two of them talk like this, close and passionate - which is  _ ridiculous  _ because Garazeb is crazy about  _ him _ , he kissed  _ him _ , just this morning he’d held him close and told him that everything was going to be okay and Alexsandr- 

Alexsandr can’t stop staring at the way Garazeb is looking right now, bathed in the pale yellow light that’s streaming through the kitchen windows, talking to another, beautiful lasat that quite obviously adores him. He can’t help but wonder if Zeb has ever looked this happy with  _ him _ . 

He didn’t this morning. And he certainly didn’t after Alexsandr kissed him. Are relationships really supposed to be this hard? Or would Garazeb be better off if he stepped back, and let him live out this domestic fantasy together with Andain Royot? At least he’d make him happy. 

“Kallus?” Alexsandr is pulled from his thoughts by Hera, who puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay, love?” 

“I’m fine, I just… I should change my clothes.” He stutters, taking a step back that shoots a wave of pain throughout his body. His leg is absolutely  _ killing him. _ Alexsandr forces his face into a tight lipped smile as he gestures towards his soiled clothes. “I’m afraid your astromech made a bit of a mess out of me.” 

Hera looks at him, to the lasats talking by the stove, back to him, with a strange look on her face. 

“Yeah. Sure.  _ Chopper’s  _ the one making a mess out of things.” 

Alexsandr decides that it’s in his best interest to ignore that comment.    
“I’ll be right back.” He says, before  fleeing  departing up the stairs, leaning a bit more heavily on the cane than usual. 

He does not, in fact, come right back. Instead, he crashes onto his bed, staring blankly at the collection of luggage that’s lying on the floor. 

Is Hera and Jacen staying in his room? 

Where does that leave him? 

Is he supposed to be sleeping on the couch, or- 

“Knock, knock.” Garazeb’s voice comes from the doorway, making Alexsandr shake himself out of whatever funk he was in. “Ya’ okay there, mate?” 

As he steps into the room, the human gets to his feet, feeling strangely caught off guard and a bit irritated. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting up here. He doesn’t know what he’s been doing, or even thinking exactly, since he got here. All he knows is that he’s having a really shitty day, and that he’d rather just be left alone right now. 

“I’m fine.” He says.    
Garazeb doesn’t seem convinced. 

“You’ve got stew all over yer skirt.”    
“Yes, I got up here to change, but then I- I…”    
“Hey, it’s okay.” The lasat says, with an aggravatingly  _ careful  _ expression on his face. “Yer tired, which is only natural after yer big day today. How was it, anyway? Did the professor treat ya’ okay or am I gonna have to go over there and smash some nerdy heads in?”    
“It was…” Alexsandr thinks about the dark, dreary office, about the class, about all of those lasat’s looking at him like he’s some kind of a monster. (he supposes that he  _ is  _ a monster to them, in just about every way that matters) “alright. There’s no need for any head smashings, even though I know that you’d love the excuse.” 

“It  _ has  _ been a while…” Garazeb chuckles, and the sound of it makes something in Alexsandr uncoil. Suddenly, he feels lighter, and before he knows it there’s a smile on his face. “Seriously though, once you’re sick of being covered in stew, ya’ should come down and actually eat some of the stuff! I promise it’s not too salty this time, Chava took care of the spices.” 

“Oh. Oh I thought you’d been cooking with…”    
“...with?”    
“I don’t know. Hera, perhaps? Or Royot?” Alexsandr does his best not to let the bitterness show. 

“Naaahhh, a stew is an entire-day kind of commitment! Me and Chava got started on it after ya’ left for university.”    
“Oh. But… why?”    
“Why?  _ Why?  _ Well’uuugggh,” the lasat rubs the back of his neck, suddenly embarrassed. “I know how much ya’ love food. And I figured that you’d probably be tired from work, soooo I wanted to surprise ya’ with something home-cooked and finished once ya’ made it back home.”    
“Oh.” Alexsandr feels his heart skip a beat, even as the blood rushes to his face. 

_ Oh.  _

“Heh,” Garazeb’s eyes flicker to him. As they make eye contact, Alexsandr notices that the lasat’s pupils are blowing up and that his ears are twitching, which makes his own start to burn. He looks down at his hands with a sappy little smile on his face, feeling weirdly light and fuzzy inside. “yeah. So, anyway,” Zeb begins to back away, eyes still fixed on the human. “ya’ should come down and eat. Once you’re dressed! Which, y’know, ya’ should do soon, because Chava refuse to eat without ya’ and the stew’s getting cold, and then ya’ got yer language lessons with Andain, which, actually, I’ll talk to him, you’ve already had a long day and we’ve got company to boot, so I'm sure ya' can start those another day-”    
“Garazeb.”    
“Hm?” The lasat stops, mid sentence and mid backwards-step, making the smile on Alexsandr’s face grow wider.  _ Ashla, I love him  _ **_so much_ ** . 

“It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.” 

As long as Garazeb is by his side, fussing and taking care of him in this endearing, awkward way of his, Alexsandr fails to see how he wouldn’t be. 

“Okay.” The lasat agrees, just a bit breathless as he stares at Alexsandr from across the room. “Okay.” Then, suddenly, the grin on his face slips into something nervous, making the human’s heart speed up with anticipation. The lasat’s eyes flicker down to the luggage on the floor.“Oh, and, by the way, I sorta kinda maybe promised Hera that she could sleep in here with Jacen. And I… uuuuuggghhh, I figured that maybe, if you’re alright with it, to save space and, y’know, make sure that no one sleeps on the couch-”    
_ As if we don’t fall asleep down there every other night, anyway.  _

“ya’ could sleep with me?” 

Alexsandr freeze. 

“OR, karabast, that came out wrong, I was thinking that we could share my room? If that’s okay? If not then I’ll just get the couch, and-”    
“I’ll sleep with you.” 

“Oh. OH?!”

“NO, I mean- I’ll share a bed with you-!”    
“PFFFT” 

“I’ll- I’ll, fuck, Garazeb stop laughing! I’m trying to say that I’ll be slee- sharing- KARABAST there’s really no saying this without making it sound sexual, is there?!” 

The lasat throws his head back to laugh, and watching him like this: loud and uninhibited, undeniably, thoroughly **happy** , undos a world of worry inside of Alexsandr. He’s already established that, as long as he’s got Garazeb, he’ll be alright. And so, it seems, will Garazeb. 

So, perhaps, the lasat was right this morning when he said that  _ they’ll  _ be alright. Together.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE: here comes another SHAMELESS load of domestic fluff, wrapped up in a bundle of dumb jokes with some of the usual angsty undertones!   
> Bon Appétit!   
> (Warning: we're finally getting a taste of that E-rating this chapter. If smut isn't your cup of tea, then I'd recommend that you stop reading at "Alexsandr's never considered himself a very sexual being." and start again at ""'Sandr?" He twists around, quick as a viper,")

Garazeb’s room is  _ a lot  _ nicer than Alexsandr’s.    
It’s bigger to start with, with a huge window overlooking the ocean. There’s a collection of thirsty-looking plants in the windowsill, a wooden closet that the lasat invites Alexsandr to hang his clothes in since he, honestly, doesn’t own that much more than what’s lying discarded on the armchair in the corner, and, most importantly, there’s a huge, queen-sized bed. Hanging over the bed is a painting of a field that looks very much like the spot where they’d first made land on Lira San. Running through the tall, golden grass is a white anooba. 

Overlooking the room, it’s easy for Alexsandr to imagine that Royot had it furnished with himself in mind: thinking that one day he’d get to walk these floors, fill the dresser with his clothes and do his hair by the vanity, that he’d get to water the plants until they bloom, and pull the darkout curtains shut each night before he’d lay down in the bed with Garazeb.  _ Well,  _ Alexsandr thinks as he sits down on the mattress, feeling both smug and nervous at once,  _ we can’t  _ **_all_ ** _ get what we want, now can we?  _

True to their schedule, they’d had their first language-lesson earlier that day, after lunch. Royot had, to Alexsandr’s never ending chagrin, proven himself an excellent teacher: he was pedagogical, patient and, as always, frustratingly charming. As a matter of fact, his review of the basics in lasan was so charismatic, so aggravatingly captivating, that it attracted a crowd. Disliking the other man would have been  _ so much easier  _ if he’d proved a shitty teacher. Before they knew it, Royot was educating not only Alexsandr on the different phonemes that make up his first language, but all of their houseguests. By the end of the lecture even Chopper seemed to be a little bit in love with him. At least Alexsandr got to enjoy being at the top of his class again, if nothing else.

Towards the end of the session, Royot asked Alexsandr to present a list of useful words and phrases for him to learn by the end of the week. 

"We learn language by giving meaning to it, and by utilizing it in our daily lives.” He’d said. “That's why I want you to choose your own words, Alexsandr. You're the only one who truly knows what's relevant to  _ you _ ." 

“It’s Kallus.” The human had argued, but without any real heat to it. He’s still not quite sure what to put on his list. 

“‘Sandr,” Garazeb says, forcing Alexsandr out of his daydream and back onto the bed. Garazeb is standing by the window, handsomely illuminated by Lira San’s setting suns. As he reaches up towards the blackout curtains, Alexsandr catches a glimpse of his hip bone and his stomach from underneath the t-shirt. The sight makes something stirr in him, and suddenly he’s a lot more nervous than excited. He’s wanted this for so long, has fantasized about falling asleep and waking up together (in an actual bed) with Garazeb ever since they spent that night together on Bahryn. And yet, he knows that this isn’t what he  _ actually  _ wants, because what he actually wants involves a promise that Alexsandr can stay, and go, and come back again whenever he pleases. What he  _ actually  _ wants involves three words and half a life's worth of regrets atoned for. “Hey ‘Sandr, ya’ with me, mate?” Garazeb says again, pulling the human out of his stupor. 

“Yes, I’m here.”    
“Heh, ya’ look like ya’ could fall asleep at any minute. Why don'tcha get ready for bed?” 

Alexsandr looks from the lasat, down to his fully dressed self, back at the lasat. 

“I am ready.”    
Garazeb frowns. 

“What’cha mean you’re  _ ready _ ? You’re still dressed!”    
“Well I forgot my pyjamas in my own room, and I wouldn’t wanna go wake the baby up, now would I?”   
“Honestly I think ya’ should be more worried about waking Hera than Jacen. She really  _ downed  _ her Chandrilian tea earlier, and she’s really scary when she’s tired. But ‘Sandr,” Garazeb looks him up and down with an incredulous look on his face. The close scrutiny makes Alexsandr flush and cross his legs for modesty. “ya  _ can’t  _ sleep wearing pants, mate!”    
“I fail to see why not.” 

“I- you- ya’ fail to-?!” Zeb breaks down into laughter, snickering into his hand as the human flushes even redder. “okay, okay, okay, how about this…” he finally manages to get out, between the giggles. “ **I** can’t sleep with you wearing pants! It looks too uncomfortable,”    
“Don’t be ridiculous,”    
“I’ll be up  _ all night  _ worrying about ya’, mate,” 

“I assure you that I will be just fine, there’s really no need to worry.” 

“thinking about those horrible, stiff pant legs while you’re sleeping on yer back like some kinda plank,”    
“I do  _ not  _ do that!” 

“I’m telling ya’, it’s gonna haunt me. I won’t be getting a nick of sleep!” 

Of course he takes the pants off. Fighting with Zeb is like a rock meeting a hard place, only he’s the rock and his tough exterior gets all soft and mushy when in close proximity to the other man for too long. 

So, five minutes of bickering later, Garazeb has pulled the curtains down, and Alexsandr is out of his pants,  hiding underneath the covers. The only light in the room comes from the soft glow of the lamp on the bedside table, as well as a small slimmer of ruby shining through the gap in the curtains. It paints the lasat in warm colours, softening his edges and making him appear almost otherworldly: like a spectre of a wish, or a long forgotten dream. Pushing the covers all the way over his nose, Alexsandr watches as Garazeb pulls the worn t-shirt over his head, revealing his finely muscled torso and the purple stripes as they stretch further down his body than Alexsandr has ever seen them go before. Suddenly he has a very vivid vision of tracing those stripes with his hands, of burying his fingers into the others fur and- nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, that is the  _ last  _ place his head should be going in this situation! He buries his face completely underneath the cover and groans. 

“‘Sandr? Ya’ okay there, mate?”    
Cheeks still burning with embarrassment, Alexsandr comes out from underneath the darkness and- 

“What. The fuck. Are you wearing?” 

“What? This?” Garazeb points towards the hat on his head that most certainly wasn’t on him before Alexsandr hid (if it had been, he wouldn't have needed to). The hat, that appears to be some sort of a nightcap, is knitted in a horrible mustard-yellow colour that clashes terribly with his fur. His ears poke out from two holes on the side of his head, making him look absolutely ridiculous. “Kanan made it for me.” 

Alexsandr snorts. Zeb blushes, his big, silly looking ears twitching with embarrassment. The sight is so ghastly, so ridiculous, so utterly, heart stoppingly charming, that Alexsandr can’t stop himself: he laughs, loud and breathlessly, until his stomach aches and there’s tears in his eyes and the lasat is laughing too. Garazeb pounces onto the bed, startling another chortle of laughter out of the human, and then they’re wrestling: the lasat trying to push the nightcap onto the sniggering human’s head while Alexsandr does his best to evade him, until Hera shouts at them to shut the fuck up from the other room. 

When they finally fall asleep it’s on opposite sides of the bed. When they wake again in the morning, it’s in each other's arms. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

During the night that follows, Alexsandr is having trouble falling asleep. 

He’s had another taxing, awful day: with work being a horrible combination of mind numbingly boring and anxiety inducing offensive, only for him to come home to Royot charming Chava and the Spectres, flirting up a storm with Garazeb and then assigning him homework. He’s still undecided on his list of words that are due tomorrow. He’s got some basic phrases in mind, like: “Hello, my name is Alexsandr Kallus” and “Please stop staring, my ears won’t start to grow larger because you’re looking at them” but he needs ten of them, and so far he’s only come up with nine. It’s ridiculous, really, he should just choose any old word and/or phrase and be done with it! But something is holding him back. 

Staring at the sleeping form of Garazeb, that’s lying on his side, snoring softly with an impossibly peaceful look on his face, Alexsandr thinks that he might know what that something is. 

He reaches out, letting his hand fall just short of the others face, and imagines a scenario where he’s brave enough to wake him up and tell the lasat how he feels, or at the very least brave enough to shuffle closer and let the comforting heat of his body lull him into sleep. The human closes his eyes, trying to find his peace: but the events of the week so far are still swarming his mind, the thought of waking up to another day of community service seems unbearable, and his hand is  _ so close  _ to Garazeb’s cheek, he can feel the others breath ghosting over the tip of his fingers, if he’d just reach out a bit more- he opens his eyes, and find a pair of large, green ones staring right back at him.    
“Garazeb...”    
“Can’t sleep?” 

“I-” before he’s gotten so much as another word out, Zeb reaches out, like Alexsandr never dared to, cradling his face between the palms of his warm, soft hands. 

The lasat, that appears to be half-asleep still, shushes him softly, before he massages the pads of his fingers into Alexsandr’s facial hair. Slowly, the tension leaves the human, making him relax into the mattress of the bed. Then Garazeb shuffles closer, and all of the tension returns with a vengeance as his heart tries to beat itself out of his chest.  _ He’s  _ **_so close_ ** . 

Garazeb jawns, big and wide, revealing a pair of glistening white canines, and as he closes his eyes, Alexsandr finds himself shuffling even closer, drawn towards him as a mouse to a lion’s mouth, before he closes his as well. 

Just as he’s about to fall asleep, listening to the steady rumble of Garazeb’s breath as it hits the lids of his eyes and the bridge of his nose, Alexsandr finds himself thinking, for the first time, for the millionth time, that he loves him. The following day, he’ll ask Royot to teach him how to say it properly, in lasan. After all that Garazeb’s been through, it’s the least that he can give him. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Royot’s eyebrow twitch, a sign of discomfort that would be barely noticeable to anyone but a former intelligence agent, as his eyes reach the last point on Alexsandr’s list. 

“ _ Jolju vosté _ .” He says, and the human has to give it to him: there’s not a hint of hesitation in his voice. 

“What’s that?”    
Royot tears his yellow eyes from the list, to Alexsandr, and for a moment there’s a glimpse of pure, unadulterated  **loathing** in them that makes the hair on his arms stand on edge. The look is gone in an instant, as the lasat puts the piece of paper back down on the table between them. 

“ _ Jolju vosté _ . It means I love you.” 

“I see.” 

_ Jolju vosté, jolju vosté, jolju vosté…  _ the words becomes a mantra, repeating through Alexsandr’s head while he’s making copies of the professor’s papers in the forenoons, as he’s preparing lunch with the Spectres, as he listens to Garazeb playing the hallikset in the afternoons. Sometimes, he’ll wake up after a dream that the lasat starred in, and Alexsandr will deal with the physical evidence by whispering the words during his morning showers (panting it into the flesh of his hand as he bites down on it, fighting against the moans that threaten to spill out of his throat as he spends himself in the downpour. He’s thinking, always thinking, of  **his** name,  **his** body,  **his** claws digging into his spine as if to inject him with liquid fire). He thinks about them every night before they fall asleep together: close enough to touch, yet a galaxy of fear and unspoken words away. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Things get better, as they always seem to do with enough time and effort. 

Alexsandr adapts to his new job, wearing masculine clothing and agreeing whenever the class badmouth’s humanity and the Empire, which, honestly, comes pretty naturally to him at this point. Slowly, the young lasat’s in professor Darjed’s anthropology classes stops treating him as an enemy to be interrogated and put into place, and begins to treat him as, perhaps not a friend, but as a distant, not-quite-amicable acquaintance that they can ask questions and juggle problems with. Slowly, Alexsandr begins to look forward to his community service, or at least to the parts where he gets to engage in the various intellectual challenges of explaining the intricacies of human nature (mostly bad) or the details of human anatomy (mostly awkward). With time, he even finds it within himself to quietly enjoy the professor’s company. Once you get past his never ending, self indulgent talking and his complete lack of a social filter, he’s not that bad. At least he never expects Alexsandr to make conversation. 

But if things get better at work, they grow exponentially worse at home. 

For once, it doesn’t have anything to do with Garazeb. Things have actually been strangely  _ normal  _ between the two of them ever since Alexsandr moved into his bedroom (almost as if they’re, finally, falling into place). It doesn’t have anything to with Chava either, or Chopper, or Jacen or even anything with Royot - no, things at home grow worse for Alexsandr because of Hera. Or, more like, his own feelings towards Hera, since she hasn’t actually done anything wrong. He remembers the promise he’d made her, right before they’d left for Lira San: the promise to take care of Garazeb. She’d seemed so worried about the lasat then, and considering that she’d spent the better part of two years with the lasat glued to her side, Alexsandr can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s  _ missed  _ something about Zeb that might explain why. The memory settles like a boulder at the bottom of his stomach, and makes every interaction he has with the twi’lek awkward and forced. He feels like he should be apologizing to her, but he doesn’t know how, or even exactly what for. In the end he opts out of it entirely by simply avoiding spending any alone time with her in as subtly a manner as possible.

The plan seems to be working out splendidly, until Garazeb catches him in the act of physically throwing himself behind a houseplant to hide from the twi’lek. He doesn’t say anything as she passes, but the moment she’s out of the room he peers down at Alexsandr with a disapproving frown on his face. 

“Why are ya’ avoiding Hera?” He asks. 

The human huffs and stands up, wiping some dirt off of his clothes while stubbornly avoiding eye contact with the other male. 

“I’m not.”    
“Ya’ clearly are.” 

“I was just,” Alexsandr searches his mind for an excuse, but comes up woefully short. “looking for my…?”    
“Lost dignity?”    
“Ouch, Garazeb...” He chuckles, preparing to say something moderately biting back to lighten the mood, but when he finally turns to face the lasat, Zeb’s still looking angry with him.

“You’ve been acting weird around her all week.”    
“I’m just… tired, is all. From work, and my studies, and-”    
“No, that’s not it. If that was it then you’d be avoiding all of us, but from what I’ve seen it’s only Hera. So spill it: did something happen between the two of ya’? Did she say something rude?”    
“No, she wouldn’t- or, well, she probably would, but she hasn’t-”    
“Then why are ya’ acting like she took a PISS all over yer ration bars?!” He all but screams, making Alexsandr take a startled little step back that almost knocks the potted plant over. Garazeb hasn’t been this angry with him since the day of the trial, and, as always, the experience makes a stab of pain and disappointment in himself run through the human.    
Just as quickly as Garazeb is to anger, he is to calm down. Alexsandr watches the fight leave him, watches his ears lay down flat against his head and his eyes flicker to the floor, full of the same kind of self loathing guilt that Alexsandr is experiencing himself. Suddenly, he can’t  **stand** seeing it on the other's face. 

“Zeb…” 

“‘m sorry, ‘Sandr. I shouldn’t have yelled at’cha-”    
“No, no, Zeb, that’s alright,” instinctively, Alexsandr takes a step towards him. “you have  _ every  _ right to be frustrated with me. I know how important Hera is to you, she’s your family for Ashla’s sake, and I’ve been acting like a… well, as you so eloquently put it: I’ve been acting as if she took a piss all over my ration bars.” He chuckles, and feels just a little bit better about himself when Garazeb does so as well. “Which, she obviously didn’t, she hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m just… I don’t know, I guess I’m a little messed up, still.” 

The lasat gives him a long, contemplative look, one that might mean everything, or nothing at all. Then he bridges the final distance between them, taking Alexsandr’s hands in one of his. 

“Hera might be family,” he says, hoarse and low enough that only he might hear him. “but so are you.”    
“I-” there’s too many (not enough) words, they stick in his throat as Garazeb cups his face and looks at him with  _ that  _ expression in his eyes: the soft, warm one that’s become Alexsandr’s favorite, the one that make the earthy browns and yellows shine like a forest at sunset. 

“Is this alright?” He whispers, making something in the human tremble as he remembers the soft reassurances before their kiss in the training room, that brief moment in time when he’d thought that he could be  _ happy.  _ Alexsandr glances down towards Zeb’s lips, thinks  _ jolju vosté _ , and says 

“Yes.” 

But Garazeb doesn’t kiss him. 

Instead, he presses their foreheads together, soft and gentle - and the impossible tenderness of the act is almost enough to break Alexsandr then and there. He closes his eyes, breathes Garazeb in, and makes another silent promise to himself to set everything right. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Unfortunately, setting everything right includes, except for the mandatory apology for acting like an ass, babysitting Jacen so that Hera and Garazeb can spend some alone time together. 

That evening, they put him on the living room couch with the toddler in his lap, a stuffed krykna in his hands and a bowl full of shredded, unappetizing fruit for “if they feel snacky” at the table. 

As Garazeb and Hera leave together for the kitchen, looking awfully smug about themselves, the full implications of Alexsandr’s evening plans dawn upon him. 

“Wait!” He calls out, staring from the two adults, to the toddler, back to the adults. “What do I do if he needs to go to the bathroom?! Hera? Garazeb?!” 

To his despair, the lasat only snickers and moves for the kitchen. For a minute he thinks that at least Hera will prove to be of some assistance: she’s a mother, after all, and wouldn’t risk leaving her child in the hands of someone so clearly inept at taking care of him. Her face breaks out into a shiteating grin, and all of his hope dissipates. 

“Have a good night, you two!” She says, before following Garazeb into the kitchen, closing the door firmly shut behind her. 

Alexsandr stares from the closed door, to the toddler, back to the door. 

Then, finally, he accepts his fate with a heavy sigh and looks down at the child. 

“So…” he says, feeling awkward and completely out of his element. “Do you like… sabacc?” 

The toddler babbles something incomprehensible back at him, and Alexsandr sighs and stares, wistfully, at the closed kitchen door. He can only  _ assume  _ that the conversation is a lot more interesting on the other side of it. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Hera had, true to their tradition of getting absolutely wasted the second the kids aren’t around, brought a couple of bottles of wine with her from Lothal. Garazeb’s never been much of a wine-person himself, but this is his favorite kind: the kind that was most definitely brewed in some rebel’s bathroom and has a faint aftertaste of loth cat piss and home. 

How strange that, more than a month since their arrival on Lira San (the planet that, by all accounts, is Garazeb’s ancestral homeworld in every sense of the word), he still feels a twinge of homesickness at the thought of the dusty old hellscape that is Lothal. 

“Hey, Hera,” he says to distract himself from the doom and gloom, waving his bottle around the air. They never even bothered with putting out glasses, opting instead to drink directly out of a flask each, and Zeb’s downed more than half of his already. “remember when Kanan tried to make his own homebrew on the Ghost?”    
“Ugh,  _ do  _ I?!” she says, throwing her head back in exasperation. “The recliner smelled like bantha-shit for WEEKS afterwards!”    
“Only Kanan could turn grapes from Naboo into a bucket full of space piss.” Garazeb says, wistfully wiping a tear from his eyes. “I still can’t believe that you threw it out the airlock!” 

“It’s where it belonged.” Hera narrows her eyes at the memory, before taking another large chug of her wine. 

“Speaking of things… and stuff… belonging in places…” Garazeb begins, feeling nervous despite the alcohol buzzing through his system. He takes another sip, trying to calm his beating heart.    
“What?” The twi’lek asks, raising a questioning eyebrow. 

“Nothing, it’s nothing, I just-”    
“Come on, Zeb, I know that look! There’s something on your mind, so spit it out.”    
“I was just… I was wondering if maybe…”    
“Maybe?”    
“maybeyacouldtakemewithyawhenyaleave?” 

… 

“What?”    
“Maybe… maybe you could take me with ya’?” He tries again, shrinking into his chair at his side of the kitchen counter. “when ya’ leave? When are ya’ leaving, anyway? We never-”    
“Why would you want to come with me?” She interrupts, sounding way too serious for what should have been a carefree night of irresponsible binge-drinking. “Aren’t you happy here?”    
“I am!” Garazeb hurries to say. “I just… I feel so  _ useless _ , sitting out here where it’s safe and comfortable while you and Sabine, Rex and the rest of the rebels are out in the galaxy, fighting the Empire! There’s still a war to win, and I’m just- just-”    
“You’re here on a mission, Zeb.” Hera reminds him, making him wince slightly. “To convince the council to accept more refugees. Like you said, there’s still a war to win out there, which in itself creates millions of displaced, desperate people who need a safe home. And there’s not a safer place in the galaxy than this, Zeb.” She puts her bottle of wine on the counter and reaches out her hand for his, clenching it tight. “I understand your frustration, but I need you to trust me when I say that we placed you here for a good reason. You’re the only one I trust to convince the Queen, and lead the refugees to a safe haven.” 

“I just…” Garazeb wince, breaking eye contact. “I don’t feel like I'm  _ getting  _ anywhere with these people, y’know? Every day I’m trapped in this house, listening to the same old privileged snobs bicker among each other about the same things without ever making any real progress. They’re all so stuck in their ways, nothing I say to them seems to have an effect and-” he looks back at her, a pleading look on his face. “are ya’ really  _ sure  _ that I’m the right person for this job, Hera? Y’know I’m no good at politics, I don’t have the patience or the… what’s the word?”    
“Vocabulary?”    
“That’s the one.” 

Hera smirks, making him chuckle a bit. 

“You wouldn’t be here unless I believed in you, Zeb.” She says, patting his hand before she picks her wine bottle back up and chugs the remaining contents of it with a tenacity that would be worrying, if Garazeb hadn’t known her for more than a decade and knows that she can handle her alcohol better than most wookies even. 

“So,” she says, after setting the now empty flask down on the coaster with a determined thud. “what’s going on between you and Kallus?” 

“Uhm, I don’t know what’cha- I mean I don’t think there’s really  _ anything  _ going on between me and-?” 

“Zeb.” 

“that’s just wrong! I don’t even get why- why would I- I’ve never had anything going on with anyone, anywhere, ever, and he’s terrible, face-wise, and how-” 

“Zeeeeeeb!”    
“and how do I know, frankly, that there’s nothing going on between  _ you  _ and ‘Sandr?!”    
“ZEB!” 

“Yeah?”    
“Just tell me.”    
Garazeb lets out a long, dramatical sigh/groan, before he slumps forward and plants his forehead on the kitchen counter.    
“Fine. What do ya’ wanna know?” 

“Everything! I mean, you’re obviously in love with him,” He makes a noncommittal sound. There’s really no point in lying to Hera, she always sees right through him. “you have been for ages! And he’s definitely crazy about you too,” he groans, reaching for his bottle. He’s gonna need a lot of alcohol to get through this. “But you’re still sleeping in separate rooms? Or, at least, you  _ usually  _ sleep in separate rooms? So what’s that all about? Are you a couple or not?” 

Once Garazeb’s got a good, solid grip on the bottle of wine, he sits up straight, throws his head back and chugs the rest of its content, fighting the unpleasant taste for the sake of the numbening buzz spreading through his system. After emptying it, he puts it to the side, and levels Hera with a somewhat blurry stare. 

“Me and ‘Sandr ain’t…” he slurs, before violently shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. The act doesn’t do much, other than make him slightly nauseous.  _ Karabst, how is Hera still able to  _ **_see straight_ ** _ with this shit in her system?!  _ “we ain’t a couple. And I wouldn’t be so confident on the whole ‘ooohhh, Garazeb, he likes ya’” he makes a very pitchy imitation of her voice, making her raise a critical eyebrow at him. “-thing if I were you.” 

"You know…” she says, in a strange, somber tone that actually  _ does  _ manage to sober him up and pay attention, if only a little bit. “after Kanan died, my biggest regret was that I didn't tell him how I felt earlier. That we didn't-"

"I did tell 'Sandr how I feel. Back on Lothal." He interrupts, heart racing in his chest. As much as he doesn't want to talk about Alexsandr, he simply  **can't** talk about Kanan. He's not ready for that yet. 

"Oh. Oh well what did he say?"

"He said that…” Garazeb frowns, putting the empty flask down on the table next to Hera’s. Even now, a month later, the memory hurts. This will be the first time he actually opens up and talks about it with someone. “He said that I'm the biggest regret of his life. And now I'm terrified that he's just here with me out of some sense of obligation or... or pity. A guy like him would never be attracted to a guy like me anyway."

"Oh. Oh, Zeb, honey, I'm so sorry, I'm…” Hera reaches out, her big green eyes swimming with sadness for a minute before she freezes, mid movement. “I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna go out there and I'm literally gonna kill him." She gets up from her chair, moving towards the livingroom with  **murder** in her eyes. 

"NO Hera don't!" Garazeb gets up as well, preparing to physically tackle her to the floor if need be, but the damn loth cat piss is messing with his head and making the kitchen all wobbly and - woups, there’s the floor, he’s on the floor, and Hera is going out there to kill Alexsandr Kallus, mess of a person and the love of his life, while he’s powerless to stop her. 

“HEEeeeerrrAAAAAaaaa,” he calls out from his spot on the floor. “don’t do this! Ya’ don’t have all the  **facts** !” 

_ What are they, Zeb?  _ The little voice in his head encourages him, the one that sounds strangely like Ezra. What’s even stranger is that he doesn’t usually have one of those, but whatever.  _ Tell her the facts.  _

“the facts are…” he mumbles, to no one but himself really. “the facts are that I love him.” 

_ That’s right, big guy.  _ Maybe-Ezra says.  _ Now go to sleep. You’re drunk.  _

“Okay.” 

And so he falls asleep, right there on the kitchen floor. Damn Hera and her bottle of loth cat piss. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

When Hera finally makes her way out of the kitchen, hours after she’d left him stranded in the living room with her child, Jacen is laying sound asleep on Alexsandr’s lap.    
After a couple of failed attempts to communicate with the child, he’d given up and put on a children’s holofilm for them to watch together, which, considering the snacks and her placement of them on the couch, might actually have been Hera’s intention from the beginning. Chopper joined them halfway through, beeping excitedly whenever someone slipped on a banana peel or hurt themselves until they saw literal stars. Alexsandr fails to see the comedic appeal, since it makes no logical sense whatsoever, but at the same time, he’s not surprised that the astromech is a fan of slapstick humor. At least it’s better than Garazeb’s last movie choice: a horror film called “Jar Jar Binks is real and he tried to eat my ass”. Towards the end of the movie, little Jacen fell asleep, cuddling his stuffed krykna while gnawing softly at the flesh of his hand, and Alexsandr’s been sitting as still as a statue ever since, careful not to wake the toddler back up. Looking at his resting, chubby little face, it’s strange to imagine that the boy might one day grow up to become one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. 

And so, when Hera finally makes her way out of the kitchen, looking like she’s ready to tear him into literal shreds, Alexsandr makes a desperate gesture towards the child on his lap. 

“ _ Don’t _ ” he hisses at her, “wake the baby!” 

She pauses, mid step, and takes a moment to assess the situation. Alexsandr is revealed to see some of the blind rage disappear from her face, and horrified to realize that it’s only replaced by the kind of cold, calculated anger that, in his experience as a former  torturer intelligence agent, usually results in a lost limb or something equally terrible. 

“Fine,” she says, gathering her child into her arms with an indignant huff. “but you better still be here once I’m done putting him to bed, or I’ll have your head.” 

“Is that a command, general?”    
“No. But I dare you to try me.” 

Hera turns around and go up the stairs, leaving Alexsandr alone with Chopper, that beeps out something smug that sounds eerily much like, 

“Ooohh, you’re in  _ trouble  _ now!” 

“Shut up and go check on Garazeb, in case she’s murdered him.” 

Chopper lets out another long series of annoying little beeps and boops, but he does, to Alexsandr’s surprise, make his way rolling towards the kitchen. Maybe he’s worried about the lasat? No, that doesn’t make any sense, Chopper is a creature of cold steel and unhinged chaos - if they ever gave him a blaster he’d probably end the war singlehandedly, and possibly all of them as well while he was at it. He’s probably just curious about what might have happened in the kitchen to make Hera so mad, and Garazeb so quiet. The thought sits uncomfortably in Alexsandr, causing a knot of worry to tangle in his stomach. 

The wait is the worst part. 

When Hera finally makes her way downstairs again, she seems a bit more collected, a lot more tired, but just as angry. She sits down next to him on the couch, glaring daggers at him with a quiet fire in her eyes that makes a shiver of unease run down his spine. It takes all of his composure not to squirm in his seat. 

“So?” He finally breaks the long, tense silence. “What’s all of this about?” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?!” Composure broken, he turns towards her and gapes. She’s looking just as angry as earlier, but in the cool, controlled way that makes Alexsandr think that she would have made an absolutely terrifying  torturer  intelligence agent. “About what?”

“I never should have asked you to take care of Zeb for me. It was a selfish request, especially since I know that you’re still struggling to take care of yourself most days.”    
“I-” 

“Shut up and let me talk. Truth be told, I’ve been worrying about Zeb for a while now.” At this point she actually does break eye-contact, sighing and looking, forlorn, into the direction of the kitchen. “After we liberated Lothal, he spent so much of his time and energy on taking care of me and Jacen that, sometimes, I worry that he never finished grieving Kanan and Ezra.” She turns back to him then, her big green eyes full of a sadness that pierces through Alexsandr’s chest. “And now, I’m scared that he’s doing the same thing here: he’s distracting himself from his own feelings, from his own healing, by taking care of  _ you _ . When we first found him after the massacre on Lasan… he was a mess. And at the time, that suited us just fine, because we were kind of messy as well,” she smiles, nostalgic but sad, which serves as a reminder for Alexsandr to breathe. “we became a family, and, piece by piece, we made each other whole again. So when I asked you to take care of Garazeb… what I really wanted, what I really wished for, was that you might find it within yourself to let him in. Believe it or not, we want you in our family, Alexsandr.” 

Hera reaches out to take his hand, smiling up at him with something like genuine happiness in her eyes, while Alexsandr’s mind is still reeling from the shock of all the things she just said. This is  _ nothing  _ like what he’d expected from this conversation, and for a moment he finds himself thinking that cruel words and shouted insults might have hurt  _ less _ . 

“Oh but, just so you know,” she says then, making him jump slightly in his seat. “if you hurt him again, I’ll hunt you for sport. Are we clear on that?”    
“Yes, sir.”    
She leaves him sitting there, alone in the half-darkness, as she disappears up the stairs into  her  his bedroom.

Once Alexsandr’s racing heart has calmed down a bit, and the jumble of thoughts have stopped whirling through his mind, he walks into the kitchen. There, he finds Chopper spray painting obscenities onto the very drunk and loudly snoring Garazeb on the floor. Alexsandr shoos the droid away, before he wakes the lasat up, gently, and helps him to his feet. 

“Come on, ljulofa,” he soothes, as Zeb slurs something about how happy he is that Alexsandr is alive, about loth cat piss and about Ezra manifesting as a voice inside of his head (which, considering what Hera had just told him, is a cause for very much concern). “I’ll take care of you tonight.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Alexsandr’s never considered himself a very sexual being.    
He’d used to tell himself that there simply wasn’t any time for it: beginning with the strict military regiment of the Imperial army and his ambition to climb its ranks, only to continue into the stress of joining the rebellion and defending Lothal from the very same Imperial forces that he’d once helped lead. Over the years Alexsandr has watched people around him fall in love, or engage in carnal relationships, or both, and felt completely estranged by the idea, to the point where his fellow Imperial cadets joked about him being made of stone. But ever since he met, and he means  **truly** met Garazeb, Alexsandr’s conception of his own capacity to love another romantically has begun to change. And now, with this new development of them sharing a bed together every night, Alexsandr’s sexdrive seems to have come out of a lifelong hibernation and gone straight into overdrive. For the first time in his life, he wakes up erect almost every morning, as if he was some pubescent teenager. To a man like Alexsandr Kallus, this sudden lack of self-control is mortifying. 

On the morning of the Spectres last day on Lira San, he wakes up pressed against Garazeb’s chest, one of his arms around his middle, the lasat’s face in the crook of his neck and an almost painfully strained erection between his legs. 

Feeling absolutely mortified over the prospect of the other waking up to find him like this, Alexsandr makes an attempt to disentangle himself. Garazeb only grunts and pulls him closer, which results in the human’s boxers slipping just enough down his hips for the tip of his cock to spring free and drag across the mattress. 

He chokes down on a moan, quietly panicking as the sound of the lasat’s quiet snores dissipates and he begins to stir himself awake. Garazeb’s hands wander as they do so, tracing their way down Alexsandr’s t-shirt in a way that makes the human hold his breath for fear of crying out. His cock throbs, bobbing impatiently for the attention of Zeb’s big, soft hands even as the human himself is freaking out. If nothing else, he’s grateful that they’re still beneath the covers: hidden from view, if not from touch. But the hands stop their aimless trail as they reach his navel, where they fist into the fabric of his shirt. 

“Morning, doll.” Garazeb grumbles, voice deep and hoarse from sleep, and there’s  **no way** he misses the way that the human’s body shivers against him as his breath hits against the shell of his ear. 

“Good morning.” Alexsandr replies, his voice coming out just as tightly wound and stiff as his body is feeling: like an arrow on a bowstring. 

“I gotta say, this is a nice surprise,” the lasat continues, snuggling deeper into the side of Alexsandr’s face as the human gasps from the implications. His cock pulses, hot and heavy, and Garazeb’s hand begin their trail anew, making their way underneath his shirt and digging his claws, carefully, into Alexsandr’s stomach. “yer usually up so early, I’ve missed waking up with’cha.” 

_ Alright, that makes sense _ .  _ I usually leave to deal with…  _ **_this,_ ** he glares down in the direction of his, so-far, blissfully undiscovered erection.  _ before Garazeb wakes up.  _

“If I’d known that this is what I’ve been missing out on, I’d never leave the bed.” 

“Oh?” Garazeb chuckles, and  _ oh  _ **_shit_ ** _ , I actually said that out loud, didn’t I?  _

As the lasat nuzzles into his jawline, his big hands clawing dangerously close to Alexsandr’s hips, the human realizes that his tactic of staying very very still until the other loses interest is a futile battle and begin to squirm out of Zeb’s grip. But as he does so, Garazeb’s hands move downwards for a brief moment, just in time for Alexsandr’s traitorous dick to spring completely free from the confines of his underwear. As they make contact, the human stifles a moan, then freeze. 

A long, uncomfortable silence settles between them. 

“ _ Oh _ .” Garazeb, finally, breathes, and then his hands are trailing down, down,  _ down,  _ to trace the outline of Alexsandr’s cock softly. He begins to mouth against the human’s neck, scratching his fangs against the sensitive skin while Alexsandr struggles to form a single comprehensive thought.    
“Is this alright?”    
“Yes,” Alexsandr moans. “Zeb,  _ please _ .”

The lasat chuckles, ever the tease. 

“Please what...?”    
“Touch me.” 

Garazeb finally, blissfully, wraps a hand around Alexsandr’s throbbing cock, working him over in an almost lazy fashion while the human moans and squirms against his body. It doesn’t take long: the lasat’s touch creates streams of pleasure that run through the entirety of his nervous system, making him shiver and moan until he feels like he’s going crazy with it. When Garazeb holds him closer, and Alexsandr feel the heavy beating of his heart against his back, when he use his big, coarse tongue to press sloppy kisses down the side of his neck and his free hand to trail patterns down the inside of his thigh, the streams turn into rivers that turns into an overwhelming, all encompassing ocean - and then Alexsandr is spilling into their sheets, warm and panting and heart aching with... with-

“‘Sandr?”    
He twists around, quick as a viper, and presses his lips to Garazeb’s. 

“Jolju vosté.” he says once he’s pulled back, once the waves of the ocean have stopped roaring in his ears and all he’s left with, all he’s ever wanted, is the warmth of their shared bed, the look in the lasat’s dark hooded eyes and those words, those two words that’s been haunting him ever since he first learned to speak them. 

Alexsandr can practically see the cogwheels turning in Garazeb’s head, but he’s, strangely, surprising himself most of all, not that worried about the words outcome: he’s just happy that they’re finally out. But then the lasat’s expression lands on puzzled, instead of any of the more logical reactions to someone admitting their feelings for you, and Alexsandr’s confidence falters. 

“What?” Garazeb asks, looking almost  _ amused.  _ Did he say it wrong? 

“Jolju… jolju vosté?” 

“I- are ya’ hungry, doll? Should I get’cha some breakfast?” 

“Wha-what?”    
“Jolju vosté means ‘I love toasters’ in lasan.” Oh. OOOHHHH he was going to KILL Royot!” I didn’t know ya’ were such a fan of kitchen appliances, maybe we should get some for the bedroom?”    
“Nnnnnooooooooooooooooo.” Alexsandr groans, sinking further into the mattress to hide beneath the dark safety of the covers. Meanwhile, Garazeb only laughs at his misfortune. 

“Aaaahahahaha I’m sorry, I’m sorry for teasing ya’, I was just shocked is all! What where ya’  _ really  _ trying to say?” 

“No.”    
“Huh?”    
“I’m not saying it now, I’m too embarrassed.”    
“Come oooooon, ‘Sandr, I wanna knoooooooow. Please tell me?” 

“No way.”    
“Pleeeeaaaaase?”    
“No.”    
“Fine…” Garazeb sighs, before ducking his head down underneath the covers to press a quick kiss to Alexsandr’s cheek. After everything that just happened between them, it seems ridiculous that such a small display would make his heart race, but it does. “ _ jolju duvitt _ .” 

Before he’s had a chance to respond, Zeb makes his way out from underneath the cover and leaves the bed. Alexsandr misses him instantly. So, he follows him into the light, sitting up to watch as Garazeb gets dressed.    
“What? What does THAT mean?”    
“I’ll tell ya’, if ya’ tell me what you were trying to say first.” Garazeb grins.    
“No way.” Alexsandr frowns.    
“Fine. Keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine. For now.” The lasat winks, then press another quick kiss to his temple. “C’mon, doll. Let’s get’cha some toast.” 

“Shut  _ up _ !” Alexsandr hiss, throwing a pillow in Garazeb’s general direction while the lasat laughs himself hoarse. 

That same afternoon, they bid their goodbyes to the Spectres, watching from the beach as Hera pilots the Ghost back to Lothal. Alexsandr studies Garazeb then, and is relieved to find none of the forced happiness he’d presented himself with during their last farewell, even as the naked sadness on his features rips a hole in the human’s chest. 

Once they’re gone, he begins to pack his things, preparing to take back residency of his own room.  _ Garazeb probably needs some space.  _ He reasons with himself, even as the thought of sleeping alone again, to take a step back to where they were before all of this, aches in him.  _ The last thing I want to do is overstay my welcome now that we’re finally… now that I’m-  _

“Stay.” 

He jumps, startled. The lasat is standing in the doorway, looking impossibly small and fragile as he stares down at Alexsandr. There’s something very lonely and lost about him, something that looks like the very edge of heartache. 

“Please stay.”    
“Yes.” He answers, breathlessly, because how could he not. 

He drops his things, forgotten, to the floor and crosses the room in two quick strides. Alexsandr reaches out, taking Garazeb’s face in his hands. “Yes.” 

They kiss, in a way that feels like the first time, in a way that feels like it should last forever. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic depictions of violence, minor character death, MAJOR canon non-compliance and enough angst to last Kallus' a lifetime

**4 months before the Genocide:**

Wake up, change the towel on fathers brow, make sure he’s still breathing (he hasn’t stayed awake for more than minutes at a time for days now, there’s nothing anyone can do). 

Ignore the hunger clawing at your insides, get your armor and your bo-rifle, wake up Dhayhhe and the anoobas (you used to be so many living together, now there’s just the five of you). 

Walk the quiet streets of the capital with death at your back, hold your breath for fear of laser shots or bombs, ignore the hungry and the sick as they call out for you in the streets (their voices will come back to haunt you in the night. You’re supposed to be their protector, but you can’t even protect yourself). 

You make it to the royal palace just in time, meeting Gron and his mother Gertrude, both honor guards, both loyal and true, at the gates. Whatever happens next, you’ll know that they have your back. 

The cities of Lasan are under siege. 

Ever since Llorna died and Garazeb made the choice to smuggle her wookie-friend, Dhayhhe, into the royal palace, the Queen has kept the gates to the city closed off from any and all Imperial soldiers. She’d asked them to leave Lasan and they’d, predictably, refused: burning their fields and establishing a blockade around the planet to cut off their food supplies as the lasats from the countryside flocked to the cities in fear. 

“What the Empire fails to realize is that we are, first and foremost, warriors.” The Queen had said, in a passionate speech that was broadcasted across the planet. “If they want Lasan, then they have a storm coming their way. We will not be slaves.” 

That was the last public speech she’d made, before the Empire cut all their communications. And now, with the lasat’s being ostracised from the rest of the galaxy and living on the brink of starvation, their odds of taking back Lasan appears bleak. But they have one last ace up their sleeves: the secret subspace radio-wavelength that Llorna used to communicate with Dhayhhe, from beyond and across the stars. 

“What the two of you suggest goes against all of our traditions.” The Queen says, gazing down at Garazeb and Dhayhhe from her throne. Despite her sheltered life in the palace, she, too, has been physically affected by the war: she’s lost weight, there are dark circles underneath her violet eyes and her once immaculately manicured claws have been grounded into razor sharp, black edges. And yet, she appears more royal now than Garazeb’s ever seen her before. “Lasat’s do not ask others to fight, or to die for us. Our people aren’t beggars, but warriors. Not that long ago, we pledged neutrality in the Clone Wars, to remain loyal to ourselves, and ourselves alone, and we’ve made no friends since then. And besides, with our Wookie brothers and sisters dead or enslaved, who would even answer our call?” 

“No offense, your highness, but if you’d leave the palace for a minute, you’d see that the streets are full of beggars on the brink of death.” Garazeb argues, heart thundering in his chest. “My old man… he’s fading away before my eyes, plagued by a disease that’s impossible to find medicine for.. My sister, and so many other lasats, have already made the ultimate sacrifice, by fighting and dying for our people. Now I’m begging ya’, don’t make their sacrifice in vain. We can’t win this war without outside-help. And if we don’t win this war, then we’re all as good as dead.” 

“There’s a rebel-cell on Onderon,” Dhayhhe says, in her heavily accented lasan. “their leaders have led an insurgency against the Empire for years, and are the ones that helped me escape from Kashyyyk. They also have a lasat working with them: Mara Gru. If we ask them for aid, they will come. I’m sure of it.” 

The Queen gives them a long, contemplative look, during which both Garazeb and Dhayhhe hold their breaths.   
“Very well,” she says, finally. “We will ask your rebel friends for their assistance in dealing with these pesky Imperials. What is the name of their leader?”   
“Gerrera,” Dhayhhe smiles, her big brown eyes flickering between the Queen and Garazeb, making him grin as well. “His name is Saw Gerrera, your highness.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

**12 hours before the Genocide:**

Agent Kallus’ ears are ringing. 

There’s a cloud of thick, black smoke covering the ground around him, and as he tries to draw breath, he can feel it coil its way down his throat like a big, fat snake. He coughs until there’s tears in his eyes, until the fear becomes too loud and the air sticks to his lungs like glue. 

He grapples, blindly, after his blaster rifle, but once he finds one he realizes that it’s stuck in someone else’s hand. There’s a body lying right next to him, with broken bones and skin burnt so bad that the person underneath is unrecognizable. The sight makes him want to flee or scream or cry, but Kallus is rooted in place, frozen solid by the shock and the fear. 

“Who is this?” He hears a small, broken voice mumble. “Who are you?” He doesn’t realize that the voice is his own. 

They walked into a trap. 

The war on Lasan had been going smoothly, all things considered, until approximately four months ago. That’s when the locals had initiated a series of coordinated attacks against the Empire’s military bases. They attack at seemingly random, sabotaging their supplies and taking food, medicine and political prisoners back into the heavily defended fortresses that are their cities. After months of intelligence work, Kallus finally found the root of the problem: members belonging to a rebel cell from Onderron have made land on Lasan and are now training the locals in guerilla warfare. Knowing this, he’d made the decision to take a small squadron of his most trusted soldiers (his childhood friends, his brother) and hunt the rebels down in the forests surrounding the capital. And he’d led them all right into a trap. 

There’s movement in the shadows, startling Kallus into forcing the blaster out of his fallen comrades hands. He clutches it to his chest, heart hammering, then rubs the remaining smoke out of his eyes as he makes an attempt to get his bearings and study his surroundings. That’s when he realizes that the dark, heavy-looking objects that're lying scattered all around him are what remains of his platoon. Most of them are unconscious (dead?) but a few of them are moving, slowly, sluggish, as they lay on the ground. Kallus recognizes the sound of coughing and, somewhere out there, someone is crying. 

“Sebastien?” His voice comes out rough and hoarse, barely audible yet deafeningly loud in the otherwise quiet forest canopy.   
Kallus tries, he desperately tries, to get to his feet: but his body feels impossibly heavy and, as he struggles, a searing pain flashes through him like a bolt of lightning. He falls back to the ground with a scream. The world is spinning and he’s absolutely sick with pain and fear. But as he opens his eyes back up again, he notices that he’s managed to twist around, away from the burn victim and towards a pair of warm, beautiful, brown eyes. 

“Sebastien.” He sobs. 

His older brother, that’s alive but hurt, there’s blood in his ginger hair, raises a finger to his lips and hushes him softly. 

That’s when the cold, smooth sound of a blaster shot pierces through the air. The crying from before stops. So does Kallus’ breathing. 

Heart in his throat, the young platoon captain looks up from the ground and he sees a person. Only it’s not a person, but a monster. It’s walking from soldier to soldier, tearing the helmets from their heads (there’s Alyssa and Dameon, Taric and Neo) before it puts its spear-like, primitive weapon between their eyes (bo-rifle) and pulls the trigger. 

Some are unconscious, some only whimper, some cry, or try to fight or flee or some tangled mess of both. They all die. One after the other, Kallus platoon, his childhood friends, his most trusted soldiers that he, in his arrogance and blind ambition, ordered to come with him on this mission, are being executed before his very eyes, and Kallus? Is frozen. Even as it approaches his brother. Even as Sebastien looks at him with the bo-rifle pressed against his forehead, his kind brown eyes swimming with tears, and mouths: “It’s okay. It’s okay.” 

Kallus watches him die without even a whisper of reassurances back, staring without really seeing the tears that’s streaming down Sebastien’s freckled cheeks, forming rivers in the mud and the blood that’s covering his face. The monster executes the burn-victim next, before it moves towards him. Kallus can’t watch, he’s studying it’s feet instead (four fat toes digging into the earth, striped ankles, purple fur), until the beast crouches down and forces Kallus head up with a large, strong hand. He closes his eyes. Feels the way that its claws dig into his head until it draws blood, feels it press the bo-rifle against his forehead, and it’s almost like relief. Let him die here, quick and painless, with the rest of his men, with his friends, with his brother. Let him rest, free of guilt and responsibilities.   
And he waits. 

And he waits. 

And he waits. 

But the shot never comes. 

He looks up at the monster (the lasat) and through the smoke, the pain and the tears, he finds himself staring into a pair of vibrant yellow eyes. They glisten like gold in the darkness, cold and cruel. And then, they’re gone. 

Kallus breathes. 

Muffles a scream. 

And sobs until he feels like he’ll die from it, like he’ll fall apart from the seams and crumble like dust. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

**10 hours before the Genocide:**

The sun is setting over the capital of Lasan, making the shadows grow deep and tall as the last trails of sunlight hit against the exterior of the stone buildings. Inside their home, the only source of light comes from the fireplace, whose rays embrace the figure of Garazeb’s father in a flicker of golden reds. He’s back on his feet again, brought back to life by the medicine that they’ve raided from the Empire’s storages, and now he’s moving around the place in slow, stiff movements. 

“You should have let me go,” he’d said to Garazeb, back when he was still bedridden. “I was going to see Llorna, and your mother again. You should have let me go.” Sometimes, when the night is at its darkest and the doubt in Zeb's mind is at its loudest, he wonders if maybe he was right. Maybe the only reason he fought so hard to keep his father alive was to keep him by his side? Maybe he's just lonely, and scared, and selfish. 

His father doesn’t talk now. 

Instead, the old man opens the doors of a cabinet, displaying a dusty old armor to the light. Zeb recognizes it with a stab of grief in his heart, as his father stretches up and gather the chainmail into his arms. It’s at least three times his size (even before age began to eat away at his body, he’d been dwarfed by his ljulofa) but even as he struggles to carry it, Garazeb knows better than to try and help him. When he approaches him, Zeb ducks his head down and lets him drape the chainmail over and onto his torso. Even with the fur covering him, it weighs cold against his shoulders, sending a small chill down his spine. 

“Your mother always looked so fierce in this,” his father says, a nostalgic little smile on his face as he wipes the dust from Garazeb’s chest. “I used to watch her train, y’know. There wasn’t a lasat in the galaxy more skilled than her with a bo-rifle, tall and strong and absolutely merciless in battle. And still, she… she-”   
“Dad-”   
“She would have been **so proud** of you, Garazeb. My son, my-” his voice wavers dangerously, his grey eyes full of tears. “my son. The youngest honor guards captain in history. Savior of Lasan. Come back home to me.” 

“I will.” Garazeb says, even though they both know the futility of the oath, the emptiness of the words. “I promise, I won’t leave ya.” 

“My son. My **son**.” 

They gather each other up in a long, warm embrace, breathing each other in as if for the last time while promising each other that it isn’t, it won’t be, it can’t be.

Garazeb gets dressed in the rest of his mother’s old armor. He wields his bo-rifle. Feeds the anooba’s, so they’ll be strong and agile besides him. And then bids his father goodbye at the door, for the very last time, as he, Asjak, Arik and Dhayhhe head towards Delta military base under the cover of darkness. 

He tries not to look back, even as his hands are shaking and his breath is labored, even as he thinks about his mother living and dying in the armor he’s wearing and he sees small, pink flowers caressing the cheek of his dead sister’s cheek before his eyes - he curse himself, because since when was heartbreak so **loud** inside him?! He tries, desperately tries, not to look back.

He fails. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

**2 hours before the Genocide:**

Kallus makes his way back to Delta military base with shattered ribs, what might be a broken ankle and his dead brother's body on his back. He’s not sure how long it takes, fighting through the underbrush of Lasan’s tropical forests on foot, unthinking, unfeeling. He pays no mind to the pain in his body (or his heart) or the danger of running into enemy soldiers or stepping foot on a landmine. But, most importantly, he doesn’t look back. 

The forest is quiet, and dark. As Kallus approaches Delta, the sounds of battle grow in magnitude, making each and every step heavier and more painful than the last. By the time he reaches the edge of the forest, his legs buckle beneath him and he goes crashing to the ground, onto his knees. Sebastien falls behind him. Kallus looks back for a moment, watching the pile of stiff heavy limbs and cold unseeing eyes that used to be his brother, before a wave of nausea hits him and he vomits all over his own shoes. 

Before him, Delta base is under heavy attack. He can hear the sound of blaster fire and of people screaming, crying out in what he now recognizes as the sound of their final moments of life. There are explosions going off out on the field, as the lasats ( **monsters** ) step onto the mines they’d placed around Delta’s perimeters, and as they throw their own explosives against the heavily guarded walls. At this rate, they’ll make it inside, and then all will be lost. 

At this rate, all of Kallus’ men will die here. 

Somehow, he makes it back onto his feet, even as the sound of blaster fire is ringing through his ears, even as the memory of Sebastien’s tearfilled, kind brown eyes keep morphing into a pair of dangerously cold, golden ones in his mind. Somehow, he leaves his brother’s corpse behind, and moves to begin the walk across the battlefield alone. Inside of him, the heartbreak is dangerously **silent**. 

But just as he’s about to leave the relative safety of the treeline, he’s stopped in his tracks by two big, lumbering figures who take shape before the moonlight. They’re a couple of anoobas, one white and one black, and as they spot him their pupils go from large and round to dangerously slitted in their big yellow eyes. The ISB agent didn’t think that he was able to feel fear, or much of anything, anymore, and yet the sight of the large, looming predators before him fills him with the primal instinct to flee. Kallus takes a step back, and the white anooba pulls its lips back into a snarl, showing him it’s large, bloody fangs. The dark anooba stays still, stays quiet, looking at him with something eerily intelligent in it’s predatory gaze that honestly scares him even more than the creature's aggressive friend. But then somewhere, far off in the distance, a voice (deep and rough, probably male, but who can tell with these savages?) calls out for the anooba’s, and just like that, they’re gone. 

Agent Kallus takes a moment to calm his rapid fire heart and slow his breathing. He remains undetected. His men remain in peril. And Sebastien remains dead and cold in the mud behind him. Thus he continues his walk out onto the battlefield. 

Strangely enough, the enemy pays him no mind. Perhaps he _did_ die out there, along with his men in the wild deep forests of Lasan? Perhaps the only thing that remains of him is a spectre, and the undying will to protect his people from these nightmarish beasts that haunts them. The thought is soothing, in a strange way, and it gives him the courage to keep going, keep walking, keep breathing one breath at a time. He traces the outerwall onto it’s eastern side, where there’s no attacking lasat’s in sight, but a hidden door that only he and a few more Imperials have the key to. 

Once inside, everyone around him is either screaming out orders or rushing to the walls to execute them. The air is thick with the scent of piss and vomit, and the few faces that aren’t hidden behind Stormtrooper helmets are twisted in fear and in anger. Kallus looks at them and he thinks about Alyssa, who used to sleep with an anooba-plushie in her bed when she was a child, and who didn’t even get a chance to see her murderer before he shot through the back of her skull. He looks at them and he thinks about Dameon, who’d thrown his extensive jedi-figurine collection out with the trash, and who’d died with a silent plea for mercy on his lips. He thinks about Taric, who’d dreamed of fighting alongside the clone troopers, and Neo, who’d covered her part of the room in posters, and how they’d died trying, desperately, to fight back against the monster that was their murderer. Kallus thinks about his brother. And he feels nothing but dangerously cold **hatred**. 

He pushes off the wall, and makes his way to his office, and the person he’d left in charge during his absence. The other man is in a holotransmission with a collection of Imperial generals and agents, desperately pleading for their aid. As Kallus’ walks into the room, everyone grows silent. They obviously hadn’t expected him to come back alive. He can’t say that he blames them. 

“The insolence of these savages has gone too far.” He says, to everyone and anyone willing to listen, to himself, and to the ghost of his brother who’d begged him not to do this, who’d died, foolishly believing that the lasat’s doesn’t _deserve_ all the hell that he’s about to release upon them. “It’s time for us to stop hiding in here, and take the fight out to them. It’s time for us to use the T-7 ion disruptors.”

**Author's Note:**

> come and scream with me about Star Wars and stuff @ my tumblr with the same name: https://reaperduckling.tumblr.com/


End file.
